A Russian attack sets fire to and destroys an Evangelical Christian church in Balakliya

Russia continues to deploy its strategy of terror against civilian targets in Ukraine, including temples and other religious buildings.

Russia attacked two Orthodox Christian churches in Ukraine on Good Friday
A Russian attack sets fire to a historic Catholic monastery in Lviv, Ukraine

This Saturday, Russia attacked the city of Balakliya in the Kharkiv region twice. These attacks, carried out with FPV drones (which allow operators to clearly see their targets), damaged cultural institutions, a high school, a civilian infrastructure facility, a cafe, and a residential building. Once again, the Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets also affected a religious building.

The second attack targeted the Gospel World Church on Sobornaya Street, a church belonging to the Evangelical Lutheran Church "Gospel World". Above, we can see the fire caused by the Russian attack, which destroyed the building.

In these four years of invasion, Russia has already attacked more than 600 churches and Christian buildings. In March of last year, the Ukrainian government published a report stating that at that time Russia had already attacked 596 temples and other Christian buildings. Significantly, 176 of them were evangelical Christian buildings, even though Evangelical Churches are a minority in Ukraine (the percentage of Ukrainians who are evangelical Christians ranges between 2 and 4%).

Thus, Putin's dictatorship is particularly targeting evangelical churches, yet (as is also the case among many Orthodox and Catholic Christians), many evangelical Christians still view this regime favorably, especially in the United States, where Russian propaganda has been very successful among conservative sectors. This success is frankly strange and inexplicable, considering that Putin has dedicated himself to promoting the radical left in the West in an attempt to weaken and destabilize the countries of Europe and North America.

These latest photos of the destroyed evangelical church were published yesterday by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine on its Telegram channel. As has happened with many other Russian attacks on Christian churches, many in the West have remained silent about this attack, a silence that is especially scandalous when it comes to the media.

As on other occasions, in Spain the government of Pedro Sánchez has said nothing about this attack, surely because it can't find a way to attribute it to Israel. Something similar can be said of some Christians and conservatives who always scrutinize everything Israel does but always look the other way when it comes to what Russia does.