The head of Ukraine's Greek Catholic Church has urged Europeans to strive for "not just victory in war, but victory over all war", a week after appealing for Ukrainians wounded in the conflict against Russian-backed separatists, whose plight has worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"There will never be peace without truth and justice – and we must use truth and justice to oppose a war which again casts its shadow over Europe", Archbishop Svietoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych told a weekend security forum in Kiev. "When painful wounds are instrumentalised to incite new hatred, anger and hostility, to present a collective inheritance from generation to generation, they merely serve to build new imperialist myths and ideologies and validate new crimes."
The archbishop said his Church would "do everything to resist new war propaganda", and to bring forward a time when "war no longer knocks at the door of Ukraine, Georgia or any other country".
In a separate message to clergy last week, Archbishop Shevchuk said the "unprecedented development" of volunteer work during his country's six-year conflict had united Ukrainians and "revealed the potential of good hidden in the depths of the Ukrainian soul". However, he warned that the "great suffering of families" had worsened during the coronavirus pandemic, and said Catholic priests should "acquire all necessary skills" to ensure their Church's active participation in "healing the wounds of the Ukrainian people".
He said: "The unconditional willingness of Ukrainian warriors to defend their homeland gave confident hope to millions of our compatriots, and became a symbol worldwide of sacrificial love and dedicated servic.
"Ukraine will still feel the pain of our veterans for a long time as they return from the trenches of war to civilian life. Caring for the wounded souls of the people must be a priority of our pastoral mission".
In early May, Ukrainian army units reported a new spike in ceasefire violations in the separatist-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where over 13,200 have died since in fighting and shelling since 2014. The Commission on International Religious Freedom, appointed by the US president and Congress, recommended additional sanctions against Russian human rights violations in Crimea and the Donbass, and called in a new report for Russia to be added to a list of 14 "countries of special concern".