It was the third heavy assault on Kyiv in less than a month. Previous strikes on May 13–14 and 23–24 in Kyiv and other locations were just as devastating, if not more so. This time, at least 22 people were killed, and more than 130 were wounded.

Eric Mock with Slavic Gospel Association was in Ukraine at the time but departed a few hours after the assault began. He says those outside Ukraine might call the attacks an escalation in the war, but for Ukrainians themselves, “it has become commonplace almost every night to have air raid sirens, to hear explosions, to hear about the loss of life.”

Polina, 16 years old. She said to appreciate your peace. (Photo courtesy of Slavic Gospel Association)

But commonplace does not mean easy. 

“It’s overwhelming for the people, it’s overwhelming for the children, and very difficult to experience.”

One teenager Mock talked with before he left was 16-year-old Polina. 

“Appreciate the peace that you have,” Polina told Mock. 

An 18-year-old named Anton told him, “We wish Americans would understand there really is a war here, and that they too would appreciate the peace that they have.”

Other Ukrainians sent similar messages to those outside their country, Mock says, including calls to pray for them and to care for them. 

“It’s actually getting worse for them,” Mock says. “The number of fathers that are being killed, leaving war widows to care for families… the number of families that aren’t able to find work and survive, and just the overwhelming need that the churches are stepping up to deal with continues to press on.”

Yet this grim context is where God has called many of His people to live and serve. SGA comes alongside hundreds of Bible-preaching churches in Ukraine who are ministering the gospel and practical help in countless ways. 

“What we’ve been doing is helping them to buy the food locally, which includes medicine, hygiene items, and different things like that, and as well as trucking that aid in from Poland,” says Mock. 

SGA has helped to provide more than 31 million meals as of May 2026. Practical aid has also included providing firewood, heating oil, and small heaters so that people could survive the winter, as Russia attacked Ukraine’s power grid.

Aid distribution in Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of SGA)

Christians in Ukraine ask that others pray with them for peace to come. Pray for hearts to turn to Christ in the suffering. Mock says pastors in Ukraine are seeing this happen in real time.

“They see people that would have never come to church, who are coming to church — people who never considered Christ are coming to faith,” he says. 

The third prayer request may have to do with you.  “Pray that God continues to move people’s hearts to get involved,” says Mock.

Connect with SGA at their website, sga.org, to learn what getting involved could look like.

“A small help can go a big way. For a child that doesn’t have any food, doesn’t have any hope, and then all of a sudden you enable the church to show the love of Christ and share the love of Christ and make a difference,” says Mock.

Header photo: Eric Mock with pastors on the front line. (Photo courtesy of Slavic Gospel Association)

Abduction isn’t the only threat to Ukraine’s children. They face a daily combination of physical danger, repeated displacement, and unresolved family separations.

Greg Yoder of Keys for Kids Ministries says, among the families the ministry serves, “A lot of these kids already know Jesus, but they’re struggling because of the fear and anxiety that comes with war.”

Ukrainian teenagers Diana and Alina read Unlocked.
(Photo courtesy Mission Eurasia via Keys for Kids Ministries)

New devotionals address trauma

Partners in Ukraine recently distributed 200,000 special-edition devotionals from Keys for Kids Ministries, designed to help children and young adults process trauma.

Yoder says the latest delivery “gets us close to a million copies that we placed in Ukraine since the war began.”

Developed by Keys for Kids Ministries and Mission Eurasia, the special-edition devotionals offer biblically grounded, trauma-focused material tailored to a Ukrainian context. Read more about the development process here.

Mission Eurasia’s team in Ukraine offered more than translation services. Ukrainian believers helped contextualize the Keys for Kids and Unlocked stories.

“We had some references to, I think, baseball. We had to pull those out and replace them with soccer,” Yoder says. “Things that would normally fit well in the United States just didn’t fit well in Ukraine.”

Nelia finds peace

Although they were distributed less than a month ago, the devotionals are already helping children like Nelia. “She has never known anything but war,” Yoder says.

Nelia shows her Keys for Kids devotional.
(Photo courtesy Mission Eurasia via Keys for Kids Ministries)

“Her mother had a copy of the new Keys for Kids devotional, and she sat down with her (Nelia) and said, ‘Pick any story in it.’ [Nelia] picked the topic, ‘Medicine for Peace,’ [because] something about it spoke to her,” he continues.

The story features a little girl who couldn’t fall asleep because she was overcome by worry and fear. Her grandmother “helped her understand the true peace found in Christ alone,” Yoder says.

“When they finished, Nelia’s mother looked at her and tenderly said, ‘You see, we don’t have to be afraid all the time. We can rely on someone closer than a brother: Jesus Christ.’”

After a thoughtful moment, Yoder says Nelia “realized, yes, I don’t have to be in fear, because God is in control.”

Find your place in the story

According to Save the Children, children in Ukraine have endured approximately 4,000 hours of air-raid alarms since Russia invaded in 2022 — more than five and a half months of alerts. The sirens don’t scare Nelia anymore.

“The book pointed her to where she needed to place her hope,” Yoder says.

You can help children and teens find hope and peace in Jesus by supporting Keys for Kids Ministries’ work in Ukraine.

“Camps are coming up this summer, and obviously, the supply that we provided will probably cover that, but I don’t know if they’ll have enough for Christmas outreach or back-to-school outreach,” Yoder says.

As you pray for these efforts, Yoder asks you to remember Ukrainian pastors. “Pray for the pastors because they’re tired,” he says.

“Imagine every day having to be ‘on’ with no rest, [and] bombings, missiles, drone attacks daily.”

Header image courtesy of Keys for Kids Ministries. 

Flares of fighting continued this week, with Hezbollah drone attacks and Israeli strikes along the border.

Eric Mock with the Slavic Gospel Association (SGA) says, “People in northern Israel are constantly in fear. Some are not able to go to jobs, maybe some of the jobs have stopped, and they’re in great need.”

(Photo courtesy of SGA)

Amid the uncertainty, SGA supports Russian-speaking churches in Israel that are encouraging people with tangible aid and Jesus’ love.

“About 20% of the population of Israel are Russian-speaking and Russian-speaking immigrants,” says Mock. “We work with a network of Russian-speaking Bible-teaching churches who are reaching their own. These are Russian-speaking immigrants, primarily from Ukraine and Russia…. Imagine a people that are even today considered somewhat Samaritans, and they are faithfully ministering with the Gospel.”

Mock says ministry efforts offer tangible relief and Gospel hope. “In these difficult times, people are looking for answers. SGA has been able to…support these faithful servants and their churches [with] resources for taking food to those people who are displaced, who are struggling in the middle of the rocket fire in the north.”

(Photo courtesy of SGA)

Through SGA’s Israel Relief fund, local pastors receive support to continue their work.

“By supporting this, you’re not just handing food to people,” says Mock. “These people are hearing the Gospel. These people are hearing a message of hope that will be unshakable.”

Header photo: Israel-Lebanon border. (Photo courtesy of Eternalsleeper | Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9439853)

Mock says the villages he went to were covered in craters from rocket and drone fire, and roughly half the homes were destroyed.

Nowhere to Go

(Photo courtesy of SGA)

“I encountered…an entire facility that was built underground with the capacity to teach over 500 children in an elementary school. The city administration headquarters, everything was underground, under reinforced concrete – in other words, like a bunker. This was their life,” Mock says.

“You may ask, ‘Why would anyone live there?’ Well, simply, the people that are there have nowhere to go. A majority are either elderly or single moms with children, and they literally have nowhere to go.”

Mock describes visiting one church building that expected maybe 30 people to show up. The room was instead filled with 70 Ukrainian grandmothers, all hoping to get some food and basic medications.

(Photo courtesy of SGA)

He says the elderly women “came up to me just flooded with tears, saying, ‘Please, thank the people. We are so hungry and in so much pain.’ They didn’t have simple medicines like Advil or Tylenol,…or simple foods to make it through the day. They were desperate.

“They wanted to know why. Why would someone help people that seem to feel there was no help? I said, ‘It’s because of God’s grace upon us. Nothing we have was not meant to be shared. But ultimately, it’s about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.'”

Monster Trucks and the Heart of a Child

When Mock left for Ukraine, he wasn’t just bringing supplies from SGA. His young grandson, Asher, also sent his favorite toy monster truck to be gifted to a child in Ukraine. Then, while Mock was distributing aid, he met a toddler named Danil.

Eric Mock giving Danil the toy monster truck. (Photo courtesy of SGA)

“He’s standing there dirty, and you could hear the explosions in the background, and you see the difficulty of his living. I knelt down and handed him this monster truck. He looked at me for a second in pure shock. But…in the midst of everything, he literally dropped down in the dirt, making engine sounds, and started playing with his truck in the dirt.”

Mock says, “He didn’t care about all the circumstances. He didn’t know what would come tomorrow. He just knew in that moment that he had been given a gift, and he wanted to have all of the gift and experience it. May we, too, be the same way with our Heavenly Father when He gives us these good gifts.”

Ask God to uplift Ukrainians’ hearts like young Danil.

“Do not lose sight of the needs that are there,” Mock urges. “The need is overwhelming in Ukraine…. The lives they live over there are stunningly difficult.”

You can support SGA’s relief efforts in Ukraine at their website.

He asks, “Pray that they would be faithful in the middle of these difficult times, and their witness would lead us in whatever we face to be faithful.”

Header photo courtesy of SGA.

One building destroyed was not a military target, but a church building in Zaporizhzhia. Yet, Eric Mock with Slavic Gospel Association (SGA) says the church lives on through the people of God.

The church in Zaporizhzhia destroyed by Russian drone and missile attack. (Photo courtesy of SGA)

Mock was in Zaporizhzhia recently, visiting ministry partners. He shares, “Church leaders and pastors there who traveled to multiple villages that were in an area called the gray zone, which is about 20 miles away from the front lines.

“[It was] close enough that we could hear the rumble of explosions in the distance, and close enough that the people lived in terror every single day of small drones that would fly around with explosives and take out people. These villages were literally decimated.”

For these pastors, going to the mission field looks like putting on literal body armor along with the spiritual armor of God. Mock says they’ve counted the cost.

“These pastors were there because they could not live with the thought that someone could perish apart from the Gospel. And so they come.”

Mock explains, “In these villages with these pastors, we help them do what they cannot do by providing the resources. And they do what we cannot do, which is almost daily wearing body armor [and] heading into the front lines to advance the Gospel and the goodness of God to a people who are hurting and lost.”

Eric Mock (center right) in a village near the front lines. (Photo courtesy of Eric Mock/SGA)

As the war drags on, embattled Ukrainians are struggling for hope.

“Generations are being impacted by this. So pray, first of all, that the believers would not be discouraged, that they would not be indifferent or lose heart, that they would remain faithful,” he asks.

“But mostly, pray for faithfulness in the midst of what the Lord continues to allow for His purposes…. Churches are being planted, congregations are moving forward, and God is continuing to be glorified in difficult times.”

You can support SGA’s relief efforts in Ukraine at sga.org.

Header photo: The church in Zaporizhzhia destroyed by Russian drone and missile attack. (Photo courtesy of SGA)

Dane of unfoldingWord says Bible work continues in Eastern Europe, often taking different forms depending on local needs.

In one Ukrainian community, the ministry is developing tools to help people better understand Bible books. “They’re creating dictionaries based on those books,” says Dane.

The same community also provides education for translators. Leaders say the goal is to strengthen the theological training of those working on Bible translation, even as the war continues.

A local pastor said, as quoted by Dane:

“We’ve also started raising the theological education level of all of our translators. Despite the difficult circumstances, they’ve enrolled in a Bible college.”

In another area of eastern Ukraine, believers are making Scripture more interactive through digital projects. Dane says: “A church planter is producing media projects with their translation of open Bible stories.”

Poltava during war, Ukraine (image courtesy of Margarita Marushevska via Unsplash)

This work is possible because of unfoldingWord’s approach, which focuses on equipping local believers to lead the translation work themselves.

“We’re building capacity into the local church so that they can translate the Bible for themselves, for their people, in their heart language,” explains Dane.

With the ministry’s open-license resources, local believers can continue the work even without outside support or funding. They are trained and equipped with the ministry’s tools to adapt what they learn to their own realities and local challenges. This approach is used globally and looks different in each community.

“The church-centric Bible translation model builds Bible translation capabilities into other teams and countries, and across project and country lines,” says Dane.

Please pray for local leaders in Ukraine and Eastern Europe involved in creative translation work. Pray that Scripture, as the living water, would quench the thirst of many people.

Visit unfoldingWord to see how they partner with churches around the world to bring Scripture to all people.

Header representative photo of the Gural people in Ukraine, 2023. (Photo courtesy of Gazeta1509 via Wikimedia Commons).

“One aspect is, depending on your estimate, over a million men and women that have been killed or seriously injured [on both sides of the war]. That translates to maybe millions of families that no longer have a father,” says Mock. “It’s brutal to look at what this war has done to so many young lives, leaving the families broken and fractured.”

Photo courtesy of Slavic Gospel Association

Children and adults carry invisible scars, the war within the war. 

“They’re going to be dealing with the horrifying sights and sounds that this war for four years has brought into their hearts and lives,” says Mock. “This trauma means that any political process for peace really is irrelevant when it comes to peace within the heart.” 

Although the United States has tried to broker a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, Mock says the fundamental differences between the two nations are land, authority, and control. 

“And also security guarantees,” he adds, “because they know an American president is a president for a limited time. So any peace agreement that they have may be transient or temporary.”

Please pray — but not only in the way you might think. 

“I am not going to ask you to pray for peace in Ukraine,” says Mock. “I’m going to ask you to pray for peace in the hearts of many Ukrainian families and many Russian families.” 

How the Ukrainian church is moving 

As peace talks concerning Russia and Ukraine continue to flash across daily headlines, Mock says the real question is this: “Both on the Ukrainian side and on the Russian side, will people caught up in the torment of this war turn to Christ and His saving grace?”

Relief and pastoral training are two of the ways that SGA helps Ukrainian Christians serve in this spiritual battle. Mock says compassion ministry builds bridges. 

“It is not about just having a warehouse full of compassion items that we’re distributing to people and feeling good about the distribution,” Mock explains. 

“It is equipping local churches to reach the people in their own community, or people who are fleeing to their community, that people would find lasting peace through the gospel of Jesus Christ.” 

You can help support this work by giving to SGA’s Ukraine Relief fund. In the past four years, SGA has helped churches provide more than 27 million meals, at least 500 generators, and thousands of blankets, heaters, medicines, and more. They estimate over 2.6 million people have heard the gospel who wouldn’t have otherwise.

SGA church partners prepare meals for displaced people from the Kursk region. (Photo courtesy of Slavic Gospel Association)

Pastoral training is another critical need, so that when Ukrainians connect with a church, they will hear true, biblical teaching that helps them grow their faith. Mock says many pastors have fled Ukraine. Others have been conscripted into the army.

“They forecast as many as the need of 1,000 pastors in the next 10 years,” he says. “So SGA, in 19 locations across Ukraine, we’re taking the training to them, working through pastors and teachers in Ukraine, as well as some Americans coming over to teach. We’re trying to train up as many young people as possible.”

Learn more about supporting pastoral training with SGA here at their website.

Header photo of Kyiv park (Photo courtesy of Nadiia Yahaha via Pexels).

An estimated 1.8 million soldiers have been killed, injured, or are missing on both sides, the Associated Press reports, with Russia bearing the brunt of the losses. Nearly six million Ukrainians fled to neighboring countries, and approximately 3.7 million remain displaced within Ukraine.

Bible translators were not immune when Russia invaded Ukraine. Dane of unfoldingWord says one gateway language project had to be put on hold.

“We were using Russian as a gateway language because almost everybody [in the former Soviet Union] was forced to learn it,” he explains.

“The war has had a devastating impact on Bible translation and church planting efforts, including our ability to deliver completed translation guides in Russian to the Church-Centric Bible translators across the former Soviet Union.”

War forces change

unfoldingWord equips believers in the local church to translate Scripture into minority languages. More about that here. A team working near the front lines in eastern Ukraine had to be relocated when the war began.

(Photo courtesy Алесь Усцінаў/Pexels)

“That team had six translators and was doing really well. They [were] working through translating the Bible into Ruska Roma,” Dane says.

“The Romani people are scattered all over Europe [with] various versions of the Roma language. That version (Ruska Roma) has about 29,000 people.”

Today, like many Ukrainians, believers are living far from home. In a recent report, the team leader told Dane that daily survival takes priority.

“He said, ‘I am living in a place without heat, water, or electricity because one night, Russia bombed the heat and power stations. As a result, no pumps can deliver water to the apartment buildings where people live, including people with infants and relatives who are bedridden’,” Dane says.

“‘For us right now, getting food can feel like something out of The Hunger Games. But,’ he said, ‘we continue working on Bible translation.’”

Perseverance shifts perceptions

Yet believers see a glimmer of hope. In their language community throughout Eurasia, “evangelical Christians have always been viewed with a little suspicion,” Dane says.

“But because they’ve stayed and they’re serving their neighbors, people are beginning to have a different attitude about the evangelicals and the Gospel they preach.”

(Photo courtesy of unfoldingWord)

Keep praying for the Russia-Ukraine war to end. Pray that unfoldingWord receives the funding it needs to get the Eurasia translation project back online.

“We really can’t do much until this war comes to an end, but when it does come to an end, we need to have our funding ready to go,” Dane says.

“Pray for those church planters who are staying in Ukraine when they could leave. If you want to stay up to date with what unfoldingWord is doing around the world, please go to our website and sign up for a prayer calendar that is sent out via email every month.”

Header image depicts an elderly woman peering over the edge of a recently bombed site in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo courtesy Mykhailo Volkov/Pexels.

Trans World Radio (TWR) is working with local ministry partners in both Russia and Ukraine. Over the past four years, they have felt the strain from every angle — culturally, spiritually, and personally — as the conflict drags on with no clear end in sight.

A Gospel worker* with TWR remembers the early days of the invasion and the shock that rippled across the region.

Ukrainian flag (Photo courtesy of Max Kukurudziak/Unsplash)

“Of course, as everyone else in the world thought, ‘Okay, this will be maybe a very short…crisis.’ But I think after the first year, everyone realized that it will be way harder to find a solution. Starting in the second and third year, I remember that they were so, so tired because nobody was expecting it to take so long.”

As the conflict zones reached deeper into the country, the team began to experience water, electricity, and power shortages alongside their neighbors. Yet, they refused to fall silent.

“They still wanted to continue to produce the content,” he says, “because there is an audience out there, especially in wartime, who need to hear about the Gospel.”

After four years of war and an estimated 600,000 Ukrainian troops killed, the devastation has carved gaping holes in families and communities. Nearly every household carries a story of loss.

Through radio programs and digital outreach, TWR and their ministry partners meet people in that pain — offering steady reminders of hope when everything else feels unstable.

“The director in Ukraine always says there is one thing we’re talking about – God, and that He’s always there. Even in these circumstances and times, God is next to us. God is near, and we can rely on Him. This is what the Ukraine team is talking about all the time in their content.”

On the Russian side, the toll is staggering as well. Nearly 1.2 million troops have reportedly died in the conflict. TWR’s Gospel worker says many people in Russia are also facing grief and spiritual struggles.

At the same time, ministry has grown more complicated. As the Kremlin tightens its grip on internet access, apps, programs, and even VPN providers, reaching listeners requires constant adaptation.

He explains, “You see that you have 5,000 subscribers, and the next day there is no one because they can’t reach the platform. So…they need to follow the audience. Where everyone is going, they need to follow regarding the connection, but also regarding the content. So upload the content again and again and again, kind of moving from one platform to the other, to not lose all our audience – because they have, as the Ukrainian people as well, questions and are waiting for the war to end.”

The spiritual hunger has not diminished. If anything, it has deepened.

Please pray for peace — for a just end to the war and for comfort for grieving families on both sides. Pray, too, that the Gospel would flourish in the middle of the devastation, reaching those searching for hope in their darkest hours.

Also, TWR’s Gospel worker adds, “Pray for…protection for our teams – and I would say on both sides. It’s still a miracle that four years after starting the war, no one was affected. No one was kind of drawn to the military from our [ministry partners], and that’s a blessing. But the people in the countries, they need the content of our teams. So please pray for security for our [partner] teams.”

Learn more about TWR’s vital faith ministry at twr.org.

*Name withheld for security purposes.

Ukraine (MNN) — On February 12, Russia launched a large-scale drone attack on Odesa and the wider Odesa Oblast in Ukraine.

The strikes hit a Baptist church and damaged a high-rise residential building, a recreational facility, and a commercial site. At least four people were reported injured.

Eric Mock of the Slavic Gospel Association says the assault reflects a broader strategy. “In Ukraine, the destruction is raining down on the people, trying to break the will of the people,” he says.

Collage of the photos from the site (courtesy of SGA)

Russian military tactics such as targeting civilian areas violate the rules of war. Among the buildings damaged was a local Baptist church led by Pastor Ruslan Shiringa.

“There were 12 drones flying around, and one hit just outside his church, shattering and destroying windows and doors and frames and the interior,” says Mock.

Despite the severity of the attack, no one inside the church was injured. However, the building sustained significant damage. In that moment, believers were once again reminded of a deeper truth — one that holds universal significance.

“They recognize in this time of war that the things of this world are temporary — and that the Church is not a building, but the people,” says Mock,

As soon as repairs were completed, the congregation gathered again.

The size of a Russian drone Geranium (Shahed), found in Vinnytsia region of Ukraine in March 2024 (photo courtesy of National Police of Ukraine via Wikimedia Commons)

“One place they find solace is by gathering on Sunday mornings or during the week to worship, study God’s Word, and unite in hope,” he adds.

Still, beyond the church walls, despair is growing. Months of relentless attacks have taken a psychological toll. “The human condition can slip into despair,” explains Mock, “into indifference and depression, leading many to shake their fists at God and wonder if He is even there.”

This is where the church steps in — bringing hope to those who have lost it and shining as a light in the darkness that leads to Christ’s salvation.

The Ukrainian church continues to carry that weighty mission of sharing hope. Pray that the Holy Spirit will guide and strengthen them.

Visit Slavic Gospel Association to learn more about the work they do with Ukrainian churches.

Header photo: Odesa (Photo courtesy of Oleh Kushch via Wikimedia Commons).