 Good morning and welcome to the United States Institute of Peace, a public non-partisan institution established by the United States Congress to prevent, mitigate and resolve conflicts around the world. My name is Peter Mandeville and I'm a senior advisor for Religion and Inclusive Societies here at the Institute. Religion has been a part of the Institute's work almost from the moment we opened our doors. The Religion program is the longest running thematic program that the Institute has and our work is focused on studying, engaging with and supporting religious actors around the world as they work to prevent and solve conflicts in their respective homelands and countries. For this reason we are very privileged to welcome today to the Institute a visiting delegation from the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and religious organizations. Some of them were welcoming back to the Institute, some of them I've had the pleasure of meeting on previous travel to Kiev and we are just delighted to have them here. I also wanted to acknowledge the presence of a couple of special guests, His Grace, Metropolitan Archbishop Boris Kudziak of the Ukrainian-Greek Catholic communities with us today and we also have Sheikhna el-Mahfuz bin Baye, the Secretary General of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim societies. We're also delighted to be partnering on this event with the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council as well as Razum for Ukraine and we'll be hearing from Ambassador Herbst from the Atlantic Council a little bit later. USIP has been doing work on the intersection of religion and the war in Ukraine for quite some time now. We've been in a kind of research and analytic vein tracing key developments and dynamics since 2018. We have the pleasure of welcoming to USIP the primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Metropolitan Epiphany in 2019. Last year we published the inaugural edition of our new series of Religion, Peace and Conflict Country Profiles focused on Ukraine and I'm delighted that just last week we were able to finally publish our full-scale religious landscape map study of Ukraine. It's available for download in the publication section of USIP's website and certainly it speaks about Alcro fairly extensively. Through this work we've come to see the many intersections of religion and the current war. The key role that faith-based organizations many of them tied to the churches and religious institutions represented here. The crucial role they played in the early weeks and months of the war in terms of providing important and vital humanitarian services and relief. We've seen more negative and destructive sides of the intersection of religion and the war such as missiles, Russian missiles and artillery strikes on religious facilities and churches. We've also seen a complex politics and security concerns rise up around the historical ties of one branch of Ukraine's Orthodox Church to Russia. Through all of these complexities, through all of these challenges, Alcro I think has been a unique and crucial voice allowing the religious leaders of Ukraine to speak collectively and in solidarity with each other in support of the Ukrainian cause. I'm now delighted to turn things over to my USIP colleague and former US ambassador to Ukraine Masha Yovanovich. Thank you very much. It is really a pleasure to be with our distinguished panelists and also with everybody else in the room. I know many of you are experts in in this area. I'm not going to do an introduction because frankly we don't have that much time and so I want to go right to questions. We're going to have about 20 minutes of questions from me and then there are going to be questions from the audience. So I have two instructions. The audience should be thinking about their questions and getting ready and we're hoping that we can do at least one round of questions with everybody perhaps even two. So Revit is close to godliness I think in this context. But first I would like to ask the Metropolitan to lead us in prayer. Please rise and at this moment we remember all those who fallen Ukraine fighting for freedom of our country and all the world. We keep in in our prayers Ukrainian brave soldiers, peaceful inhabitants who lost their lives, who suffered because of Russian aggressive invasion, who lost their homes, their relatives. We pray for refugees and IDPs. We pray for those who wounded, who suffered because of mental wounds and we pray indeed for peace, for long lasting just peace for Ukraine. We ask God's help for everyone who helps to provide this just long lasting peace, who working to create this peace for Ukraine, for Europe and for entire the world. And I ask to keep one moment in silence, in remembrance of all those who lost their lives because of this Russian invasion and aggression. I'll turn to you first and I was hoping that maybe you could set the stage for for this discussion and tell us the purpose of this trip. Obviously it's an ecumenical trip which I think is significant in and of itself and what you hope to accomplish here in the United States. First of all I would like to thank as always our very good partner United States Institute of Peace as well we thanks to Foundation Razum which helped our delegation to be here on behalf of all our delegation we thanks Atlantic Council all our partners who made this visit possible because even to reach United States for those who living in Ukraine is a very hard task but we are here because many important reasons first of all we would like to express our deepest gratitude to the people of United States government non-governmental organizations all those who are supporting Ukraine is this duct time of our history we have deepest gratitude to those who understand our sufferers who share our pain and who really helps us to achieve as soon as possible the victory of truth in Ukraine. Our goal is to present in person Ukrainian religious freedom, diversity, deep mutual understanding and cooperation because our Council of Churches and Religious Organizations is a non-governmental institution which created by our own will more than 25 years ago and we have 15 members different churches who represents almost 95% of entire Ukrainian religious community we have representatives of different Christian denominations Muslim community and Jewish community and it is very unique example of not just peaceful coexistence of people who have different faiths different national identity but deep and fruitful mutual cooperation and we had for this more than 25 years we had a number of meetings with its abroad and we know from our experience how it's important to just present ourselves because just now in current world I think it's a one of most important examples peaceful coexistence and we try to bring this good news from Ukraine that inside Ukraine we have this cooperation we really enjoy freedom of belief we really protect these rights and last but not least our goal is to share our experience because we are eye witnesses of Russian atrocities of what's going on in our country we have deep cooperation with different people from the grassroots level and we understand what our nation need and we try to share with our partners here because only together we are able to prevent very real catastrophe of third world war and I think with hell with partnership of all people of goodwill in United States and around the globe so no later but we will achieve victory for truth in Ukraine and in the world thank you thank you metro problem wrap up like I don't know if you want to expand on that in terms of the ecumenical view and relations among among religions in Ukraine and the status of freedom of religion for the Jewish faith but perhaps also others first thing I would say is that the Council of Churches religious organizations is non ecumenical that's the first thing I would think that that's what keeps the peace the and that's an important point the point is that what brings us together is the fact that we're all representing religious communities different of different faiths obviously but when you come around the table this it's not me and my faith against you and your faith but it's us together as people of faith against the challenges that people of faith have in Ukraine or in the world you know relations to government relations to everything else this is what keeps us together this is the glue that keeps us together we're a real non-governmental organization in other words we really we didn't start out that way but in 2003 and especially in 2004 after the Orange Revolution the Council understood that our power will be by being a non-governmental organization that's where our power lies not with being controlled or quasi-governmental which we were before but really to have a totally independent organization and thank God we were successful in doing that because that's really what gives the success and the power of the Council so living in Ukraine by the way and I'm an American citizen if anyone could tell from my accent I'm probably the oldest ex-pat living in Ukraine but I'm there since 1989 so I witnessed Ukraine going through it's you know the the throes of independence in the beginning of the 90s the different I would say revolution is Ukraine was a lucky country they got more than one chance they got you know a chance in 1991 and they got a chance in 2004 and then they got a chance in 2012 and now there they have another chance and what's happening is you're seeing the development of a true democracy at the beginning we thought that it's great because everything is good and there are no wars and nothing is happening but the fact is the difference between the 2004 revolution 2014 one was that 2004 no blood was spilled thank God whereas in 2014 when blood is spilled at least in religion we know that that's a covenant that will last and stay in other words that the facts and I'll be honest with you that I as again as an American citizen living in Ukraine and the head of the Jewish community the moment I saw the first shot fired at the Maidan I knew it was over there was no there was no politics and no diplomatic approaches anymore that's it it was over and the the approach that we're bringing here the message that we're bringing here is first of all just look at us just look at us this is a real council of churches and religious organizations unlike some of our neighbors right this is real here people are here because they want to be here they're representing someone and we're not being chosen by the government who should be members and who shouldn't be members we have 18 members here and these 18 members represent as you heard 95% of all of the faithful in Ukraine no matter what religion that's something really really special for this as an ongoing organization so that is our first message just look at us we sit we talk we have freedom we make decisions when laws are passed that affect religious life in Ukraine our voice is heard we are able to represent I can't say we always win because politics is politics and Ukraine is a you know obviously it's a political country and it's not ruled by government by religion so I can't say but at least our voice is heard we can lobby we can go meet with the different factions in the parliament we can put forth our our opinions and and all of our things all of our opinions and all of our statements are all unanimous there's no majority ruling with the in the council which is something it says something about the fact that we're able to bring this all together the message that the Metropolitan spoke about I think that's the most important message is that we represent the people the Temerity Foundation paid for our tickets the the the Rasmund Foundation is paying for our visit here etc and the different foundations are participating we were not and are not funded by the government even one penny so we don't have anything to say and the government doesn't like to say about what we say either we're here representing the people of Ukraine we're here representing the people the millions of people that had a run that we all of these religious organizations here helped them we here represent the millions of people that were displaced the women and children that are being bombed every single day and they're being killed every day that's what we're here to represent we're here to tell the story of the 10% the 10% is the difference between an NGO spending money in a government spending money we know that every NGO knows it that for every dollar spent by the US government it will cost 10 cents for an NGO to do the same thing for a war fought by the United States against the same enemy that Ukraine is fighting would cost more than 10 times as much Ukraine is representing today and taking the heat for the democratic world we're there the only reason Russia is fighting this is because we're a democracy the same way excuse me for comparing it that Hamas is fighting Israel because it's a Jewish that they're fighting because of democracy it's it's and I think that this is very very important for the American people again I'm an American I'm a taxpayer by the way to buy taxes so so I understand when the question is what's happening to all that money what's happening to all that money and and Russia who knows better than you how many people at the rank of ambassador are in Ukraine today looking where that money is going from the American side so the question of where the money is going should not be to the Ukrainian government Ukrainian people but to the American government and I'm sure the American government can account for every single penny that's going on and all the weapons everything is being controlled today that's not it's not the Wild West out there in Ukraine it's not the CIA smuggling arms in there and nobody knowing who's getting him and envelopes of cash that's not what we're dealing with today again the this is our message and our message is again not to lobby government but to speak to the people people of the United States good people of the United States understand what's happening we are being killed every single day and it's the the the height of hypocrisy when Putin gets up and criticizes Israel for attack and Gaza and saying that there are civilians there and women and children will be killed innocent women and children will be killed left without a roof on their heads he has been doing that for nine years every single day every single day for the last nine almost ten years civilians women and children are being bombed their homes are being destroyed Russia has not conquered any land in Ukraine they have only destroyed land and this is our message here I hope I wasn't take too much time but you're right on the money that's that's my message and that's our message here today to get this message out to the people of the United States thank you thank you it is so important I think for all of us to hear your witness of what is happening in Ukraine today because I think that with the you know all the news going on people sometimes forget so I did want to turn to Sheikh Tamim to ask you about the Muslim experience in Ukraine under these circumstances with Crimea still being occupied by the Russians what is the what is the situation in Crimea first of all and secondly in Ukraine with so many Crimean Tatars you know evacuating themselves to first I want to speak thank you everybody to come here and to invite us to speak about our Ukrainian community we like the representative of the Muslim but we are working all together one one power one front because Ukraine for us that's the government or the land who join us all together and we have the free any possibility which we want to do we can do in Ukraine about the situation I want to tell you that we tried many a time to opposite anyone who want to use the religion for their political movement and when Russia occupied the Crimea and the Dumbass and the Ukrainian people make the Maidan revolution we find somebody who put in YouTube the Islamic government in Dumbass and we find somebody who can use the Islam or the Muslim community to destroy Ukraine and we organized the international community for all the representative for the minority nationality in Ukraine that's about 60 organization and we control the Islamic movement in Ukraine this is a two a question that's very important to keep Ukraine to defend Ukraine and don't give anybody to destroy Ukraine like Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia and others that's some information about our job we came here to explain everybody for the government that government but anyone you know we are representative of the majority of the Ukrainian citizen and we want to speak with the Ukrainian American citizen to understand us and I want to ask the Muslim community who help Ukraine who help Ukraine we receive like Muslim community from a Jewish from Christian and the delegation come to mosque from Europe from America but without the Muslim representative why we are part of Ukrainian community and we defense our land and somebody want to use the Islam to kill the others and use this one for their political like Russia and others I want to ask everybody think about the Ukraine like one government and we have one land and must help us to save Ukraine because for us that's an example for many countries in Europe in America how we can live all together I want to ask the Muslim community you heard anybody but you don't see the Muslim community and the Ukrainian citizen why I don't understand that's my question and have you got received an answer to that question have you received an answer to that question not yet not yet okay well we'll want to hear what the answer is because certainly deserves a good answer so mr. Bruce and I Bishop Bruce and I wanted to ask you I mean the the Protestant the evangelical community in Ukraine is relatively small but relatively influential including you know having many ties here in the United States and I'm wondering you know I guess first of all what your experience your community's experience has been during the war but also your important role in the reconstruction of Ukraine yeah first of all I want to say thank you to all of you for supporting Ukraine and I want to underline that this war is not about our land this war is about the very existence of our freedom identity values and culture this is about people about human life there is no space for the Ukrainian identity under Russian dominion so for us it's very clear fight or die and we are here as people of Ukraine and I'm speaking you out of butcha because my apartment is butcha which was occupied and looted by the Russians I am leading a seminary which was hit by six missiles by the Russians we have graduates and pastors and chaplains who are murdered so please hear our cry I want to witness that we enjoy religious freedom that we have in Ukraine because for 70 years we have been persecuted by the Soviet Union we know what does it mean not to have this freedom and now we do have this freedom and also I want to underline and you know draw your attention to the problem of religious freedom on the temporary occupied places we are not speaking about a lot of churches and buildings taking away we are speaking about people being murdered just because they have different faith so and because I am in Washington and Marty Luther King is one of my hero I like I like his speech here I have a dream but he has another quote in justice somewhere is a threat for justice everywhere there is a significant existential challenge for justice on the occupied lands so this is our invitation to think about freedom justice and I am very proud to see how different religious communities of different faith and traditions they join hands in order to help fellow Ukrainians and we do have big plans to rebuild Ukraine Ukraine have future because we fight not for land we fight for values and we hope that people of the United States who love freedom justice democracy and peace will not leave us alone thank you thank you very much to all of you so I'm going to throw it open to the floor I think you've heard a lot of interesting comments we haven't had a chance to really follow up but this is your chance to follow up so who wants to be the first person represent is there a microphone yeah do you want to bring it over could you wait just a second because I think this is being recorded yeah Jim Saladerie I'm curious how you all react to the legislation that was under consideration last week in the Rada that was attempting to some people might say regulate control the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine just curious how you all react to that yeah so I'm gonna I'm gonna speak some Jewish so I'll speak about it I was also that was also orthodox right I want everyone here to understand the challenge that Ukraine is standing in front of the question is not a regulation of religion and the proof is in the pudding because I'm like I said leave this since 1989 I've seen freedom of religion grow and grow and grow in Ukraine no question about it that over the last 33 years that Ukraine has been independent there's been a tremendous tremendous growth of religious movement religious life religious freedom indeed when I would say when this government came into power they had come right after Ukraine had created and the canonical Church of Ukraine the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and because that was done by the previous president so politically there was even some leaning you know towards the what we call the Moscow Patriarchate of Ukrainian Orthodox Church however the challenge that Ukraine has is whether there's a church that is 101% controlled by a government that is waging war against you the the Orthodox Church in Ukraine unfortunately because you know there are good people everywhere including in the church there however when it has become evident when Ukraine began this they began by just arresting individual priests that were found doing things to break the law and spreading and working for Russia within Ukraine they did begin with that it didn't come and say oh let's get rid of this church you have to understand that politically it is not a very smart move to quote quote unquote regulate a church that millions of people living in Ukraine are members of that church and there's no way it's faith it's not that they're gonna be able to say okay now move over to the other church it doesn't work that way however at the same time Ukraine is challenged there's a war going on and that war is what we call a hybrid war and part of the hybridity of that war is that the the if Russia can work through the churches they're working through the churches and I'll give you an example like I said I'm an Orthodox Jew but in 2005 I personally in my office in Kiev was approached by two representatives of the FSB the Russian security services if I would work for them and help them create a structure whereby they will be able to control the Jewish community in Ukraine and use that structure to disseminate I'm telling this was told to me openly it's not like it was you know they were they were hiding they said they'll give me all the money I need and I'll be I'll have all the money that Lazar has in Russia and all the power that he has there they'll give it to me in Kiev all I had to do was head an organization to help them create an organization and there and what they told me was the reason is because they said they're trying to get Ukraine to unite with Russia on top it's not working they're gonna work through try and work through the civil society and organizations on bottom so I threw them downstairs you know figuratively and threw them out of my office but I don't know how many people they went to besides me that they got to do these things so they'll use any means that they can to get into Ukraine that to try and control and bring their point of view and as my colleague said to take away our freedom because they're fighting against our way of life which is democracy and freedom that's what the fight is against so they'll use the church for that and in general the problem is that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church not only is does he bless the soldiers that go out to murder us not only he's even collecting money to pay private armies now to go to Ukraine and to kill people that's basically what's happening because it's not a war against of the Russian army against Ukrainian army as we heard this is a war of of the Russian army against Ukrainian people and not only Ukrainian ethnic people but even Russian ethnic people if they want to live them regretfully they're the ones that are getting killed I want to remind everybody that the parts of Ukraine that are now occupied are occupied by ethnic Russians they're not ethnic Ukrainians it's part of Ukraine but most of the people they were Russian speakers the ones that Russia said they're coming to save and what have they done they're murdering them they're killing them they're bombing them her son that in their so-called constitution is part of Russia is being bombed every single day by dozens and dozens of bombs so if the church again the the the structure of the church is very difficult I believe I'm Jewish okay I'm gonna be open with you and honest to you I look at this and I say what's the precedent here they're controlling a religion and what happens if somebody else comes up and doesn't like the Jews or the Muslims or somebody else they're gonna start controlling but it's a very frightening thing and I've met with members of Ukrainian Security Service about this about what is the right way and what is the balance that they can do to maintain the peace to to maintain the law within rule of law you can't tell somebody okay if you're a church you can break the law you can work for the enemy it just doesn't work that way even if you're a man of the court and if you're a man of faith and you're a religious leader when you break the law you have to pay for it this is this is what's happening and that's why we're looking at it of course obviously we're all nervous about it and we're all worried about it and we're all concerned about it but at the end of the day Ukraine has to survive Ukraine has to thrive as a democracy and it's just will not happen if it's going to be controlled over parts of it are going to be controlled from the enemy state while the war is going on thank you if I mean does anybody else want to add if you want I would like to add some something to this beautiful explanation because I'm sure everything what Rabbi have been told we must understand that in 1943 Stalin's government create special institution which have title Moscow Patriarch church title and publicly leading by church persons but signs that time Moscow Patriarchy as a ruling or governing body is totally controlled by trembling it was during the Soviet time and still is during the Putin's dictatorship more over during the Soviet time was a huge split because of ideology church believing God communist partner partner was a community of atheists but now Russia officially use religion every kind of religion everybody had opportunity to saw a meeting between Putin and number of Russian religious leaders in Kremlin it's looked like not a meeting between a political representative and religious representative but it's looks like a report of some officials who reported to his highest boss what what have been done and the general problem is that Russian Orthodox Church or part of Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine is controlled by governmental institution which bearing religious title but in reality it's a just a part of government of Russia and what Rabbi told this public blessings of Russian atrocities of war crimes this justification official justification it's not something would happen occasionally that Patriarch during his sermon told something unacceptable it's a policy you know the very concept of Rusky me Russian world it's an ideology which justified elimination vanishing of even Ukrainian identity because those who live in this ideology of Russian world they think that Ukrainian identity not permitted and the main goal of this draft law is to protect Ukrainian citizens from instrumentalization of Russian governmental institution Moscow Patriarchy or other institution because rabbi told that such attempts to control religious life in Ukraine is not related to only Orthodox Christians but every kind of religion in Ukraine and it's slow this law it just about protection of instrument from instrumentalization and we as the representatives of different communities we can see that no one religious community in Ukraine we officially have up to 60 different denominations small big very different and only one denomination Moscow Patriarchy which officially told that they have no ties no subordination to Moscow Patriarchy they proclaimed a year ago that they are independent and only one this denomination told that this draft law is against our interest but in this draft law you don't find any specific name of the religion or a denomination or confession or religious union it just about administrative subordination to Moscow if they have if they have no ties not subordination to Moscow it's not related to them but if they try to fool Ukrainian society and all people of goodwill around the globe and use their feelings to protect religious rights religious freedom use to protect Kremlin power and control over religious life in Russia in Ukraine and other countries I think it must be clear that it's unacceptable and we think we as a council more than half of the year ago we met with the head of parliament speaker of our parliament of Radha and he and we have been asked does anyone in this room you representative of all religious denomination does anybody against the ban on subordination of Ukrainian religious community to Russian centers no one rise there was it we are in favor we try to keep this subordination everybody agrees that we are all against because we and Bishop Rusyn told it we had huge experience of more than 70 years living under Kremlin control of religious life and we very good know what is what it is and especially we know from experience on occupied territories where no freedom at all including religious freedom to no one if you not loyal to a Russian government you have no rights it's no matter your Christian Orthodox Protestants Jews Muslim or someone else and I think that this law must be treated as a law which have aimed to protect religious freedom from instrumentalization by Kremlin's dictators thank you sorry yeah thank you this is a really important question thanks for asking it and thank you for the full some answers I don't know if either of you wanted to add anything to matter we support everything what has been said we don't see this war as a threat we know what does it mean to have no freedom so we know that smell so as a evangelical community we understand that our country must protect itself and we don't see this law as a threat for religious freedom and there is a very good dialogue that we have between our communities and with our government so the same on 2015 I think that's by initiative of our council we try to make contact with the representatives of religion organization in Russia in Oslo and we spoke about our situation about Ukraine about the friendly relation but they couldn't decide anything they couldn't decide anything and when occupied now the some parts of from her son and others they tried directly to open a new mufti yet religion organizations lie and name the mother mother Russia this is a situation they dictate the people to do that and everybody left Ukraine and go to Turkey to Germany to America like that yeah I can add I just want to add one thing Jeff another thing that that I want to add that when they went to that meeting in Oslo so they can all attest to the fact that when at the meeting of the council when we spoke about going to Oslo to meet with Russian religious leaders I voted against it and I told them that they'll all be prepared by the FSB every single representative that came from Russia was prepared by the Russian secret service for this meeting with the Ukrainian religious leaders and they weren't prepared by the SBU in other words you talk about a democracy you know that where the religion just freeing you do your thing over there everything and everyone is controlled by the government so you know that's this is the danger over here that's really what the law is addressing thank you so I think we have time for one more question now boy is that you yes I know they're at your bishop from to speak if I can add a Catholic voice to this question which is raised by many which is parroted by Tucker Carlson in company even in the last 24 hours and which is planted by a genocidal power that is declared that its intent is to eliminate Ukraine as a country as as a culture as an identity and it's very important to understand who is talking about this and who's bringing the attention of American government American institutions global the global community to this question in Russia as was said but I would like to amplify there is no real religious freedom for anybody any confession all confessions are equally or not equally but all confessions I'm a more equal than obviously lack religious freedom my church has probably about half a million members in Russia the Ukrainian Catholic Church which was the biggest illegal church in the world from 1945 46 to 1989 analogy what is religious freedom in the United States we have 200 parishes for 50,000 people that go to church 200 pairs in Russia there's 10 times as many we have not a single registered legal parish it's not impossible it's impossible for Ukrainian Catholics in Russia to have a parish there are other confessions that are illegal the Joves witnesses illegal the Catholic Church in Russia is is stunted it's involved in self-censorship the Orthodox Church is completely controlled in those dissidents those priests that said an aggression against Ukraine is immoral have been defrocked in 300 years every time there's a Russian occupation the Ukrainian Catholic Church is rendered illegal starting with Catherine 19th century 20th century 21st century in the occupied Donbass area there is not a single Catholic priest that is function Roman Catholic or Eastern Catholic and all of our confessions understand that a Russian occupation is a will bring the limitation or elimination of our religious freedom so for a voice from Russia to question religious freedom exhibited here we're in the world will you see an Orthodox Bishop a Muslim Imam an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi sitting together as you said look at us look at us and that is that is very important for for people to see because the eyes of the world are only discovering Ukraine and we were very grateful to the Institute of peace that fosters this discovery because the issues are not simple but the image is very clear and it's before our eyes today yeah we're gonna take one more as quickly and thank you I'm asking of this person in the United States the event evangelical community is growing rapidly and it has a unique and interesting allegiance to the Republican Party often a particular part of the Republican Party and yet the evangelical community United States often aligns itself with the Russian Orthodox Church for reasons of faith for reasons of belief and I find it and I've worked with Ambassador Herbst on some of this earlier on that the evangelical community in the United States which is very important politically especially today in the US Congress today when we're looking at whether or not to fund Ukraine going forward for the next year they need to hear from the Ukrainian evangelical community they need to hear about the atrocities of the murder and torture of the evangelical pastors in occupied Donbass they need to hear about the lack of fit of freedom from you from your community what more can you and the evangelical community of Ukraine do to help the evangelical community in the United States understand that the Russian Orthodox Church is not today for all the reasons you've given is not the example and that they should not seek to align with it when it has no respect for the evangelical community what can the evangelical community of Ukraine do to help us here in the United States with that part of our of our citizenry thank you this is very important question and we do our best making our story known among our fellow evangelical believers yes we see that Russian propaganda is extremely effective and I don't think that only evangelical community can change the perspective of evangelicals in the United States this is our common goal and we you know even though I am an evangelical pastor I am I want to work on behalf not just my tradition but all people of Ukraine this war made every Ukrainian my neighbor so and impacting evangelical communities in the United States with true information about atrocities and horror of the war this is our common thing and I believe that this meeting is crucial because we can by our presence here we can communicate that there is a unity and this is unjust war and of course we need to have more support and assistant of all people of United States not just evangelical but we see this problem yeah yeah that's that's a really important question thank you Natalie so I think we've had a very rich discussion which is also a little bit frustrating because I at least have a lot more questions on you know just a few questions we were able to go through plus a whole bunch of other ones and I'm sure that many of you all do as well so I'd really like to thank our panelists and I'd like to ask Ambassador Herbst to come to come up and wrap it up you can take questions and email as well all right there you go you heard it oh Marsha thank you and thanks to USIP and Rosam for putting us together in the Eurasia-Centralenic Council is delighted to be part of it this is a very important event Putin's war on Ukraine is a war of war crimes it's a war designed to destroy Ukrainian-ness said multiple times by senior Russian officials in Russian media and when they say that what they mean is to make sure that Ukrainians in Ukraine under Russian control give up their Ukrainian identity cease to exist as a community of Ukrainians which is why some scholars of genocide like Eugene Finkel call this a war of genocide this war is a war on religious freedom too and it's wonderful to have all the major face in Ukraine represented on this panel and in the audience all to make this clear it's important because it's part of the what would you call it the abomination of this war it's not simply a war about territory as some naive realists think it's important too because Americans believe very strongly in religious freedom part of our constitution part of our public debate every day so the testimony we're hearing today from the faith communities in Ukraine of the horrors that they are undergoing in the role Russian occupied Ukraine is important for Americans to understand it's important as my longtime friend Natalie Resko pointed out because there is one fraction of one party in the United States which seems to be clueless about American interests in ensuring that Putin's war on Ukraine fails and one part of the constituency in that fraction is evangelicals and we know how badly the Kremlin treats evangelicals in Russia and then Russian occupied Ukraine and this is a story that needs to be heard here not just from evangelicals we should help it's all in our interest then there's something else which is really important too and in fact it has two dimensions Russian propaganda is a serious phenomenon and they have successfully applied two themes which work against Ukraine which work against common morality and also by the way against American interests theme number one is Ukraine is full Nazis and boy you got to make sure that those Nazis in Ukraine are defeated and we all know the peculiarities of this since Ukraine at the moment that Russia launched its large invasion had not just a Jewish president or a Ukrainian who happens to be Jewish president similarly that had a prime minister who was Jewish Ukrainian Jewish citizen and fortunately not entirely the push back against that the truth told against that has limited its impact not entirely this goes back to a a letter that was published and I forget with the New York Times I think Jim Timoney also helped put that together back in 2014 that laid out that this was a false narrative and having Rabbi Blake and others in the Ukrainian Jewish community was important to that I mean another very important figure in public life in Ukraine is Joseph Zissel's who of course spent many years in the Soviet gulag standing up for the rights of Jews to well he's kind of secular Jews but right of Jews to identify as Jews to act as Jews including practice of their religion. So that one is not fully under control but largely but the second one the second main theme is still metastasizing Malilin Malilin that's a kind of a mouthful that's the notion of serious repression religious repression in Ukraine. Rabbi Blake addressed this when he talked about priests of the Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate who are breaking the law by providing sanctuary to Russian agents maybe providing some information to Russian military maybe harboring weapons and of course beyond that which is why people are getting arrested in Ukraine not because they're repressing the Moscow Patriarchate but there's also the truly non Christian non Orthodox I say that as an Orthodox Christian behavior of the MP as they're telling Russian soldiers heading to the front in Ukraine. Hey, if you die all your sins are forgiven. Pardon me but that reminds me of the notion that the jihadi who gets killed goes to heaven and gets 70 virgins. It's kind of similar huh. And of course, Patriarch Kareel who was a agent of the KGB in Soviet times some habits die hard is also now funding his own mercenaries to go kill Ukrainians. It would be nice if certain active American media types were to put that on the air when they're trying to slander current Ukraine. Last point. The most famous quote in the you might say the history of American foreign policy realism is John Quincy Adams saying we don't go abroad for monsters to slay. We are the well wishers of everyone's freedom but the guarantors only of our own. Now that's a great quote. And people sometimes use that to justify us not providing support to Ukraine. Because those people don't understand that Putin wins in Ukraine. His next stop is Estonia and Lithuania. But let's put that to the side for the most that's not so relevant to this conversation. It's that other point the sub parent sub clause that we are the well wishes of everyone's freedom. Well excuse me when you have so called American journalist propagating falsehoods about Ukraine slandering those fighting for freedoms that is not American. Thank you. Thank you very much ambassador and thank you to our distinguished panel and I think we want to give you another round of applause.