Children massacred. It is a time of mourning in Ukraine. The attack struck a residential area of the town of Kryvyi Rih, the birthplace of President Volodymyr Zelensky, last Friday. Twenty people were killed, including 9 children. They were out playing on a warm, sunny afternoon. Tymofii was only three years old, Radyslav and Arina seven. There was also nine-year-old Herman and fifteen-year-olds Danylo, Alina and Mykyta. Kostiantyn, who will always be sixteen. Nikita, seventeen. A harrowing, heartbreaking list. Monsignor Maksym Ryabukha, a Salesian, is the Bishop of the Donetsk Exarchate. “The Exarchate covers four regions, one of which is the Dnipro region, which includes the city of Kryvyi Rih,” he explains. “That’s why I am also the bishop of this city.”
“The city has suffered repeated rounds of heavy shelling. Friday’s attack was the latest in a series of attacks, but it was the deadliest, claiming the lives of many children and leaving numerous families devastated.”
Funerals were held yesterday for two 15-year-olds killed in the attack. Hundreds of mourners gathered to bid them farewell. Memorial services have been arranged for the other victims. Forty-eight people were reported wounded in the attack, including four children who are in critical conditions. Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said the attack was the deadliest so far in the war in Kryvyi Rih, an industrial city with a pre-war population of about 600,000 that has been repeatedly targeted by Russian missiles and drones. “Though it was clear to us years ago, every day we are reminded of the heartlessness of Ukraine’s aggressors,” the bishop said. “The war they are waging is demonic, to attack human life in this way, showing no respect for it, is utterly unacceptable and has nothing to do with Christianity. When I think of those who pull the strings from behind their desks and order the bombing of residential areas, I cannot help but wonder if there is anything human about them. It’s a heartbreaking abomination.”
Next week, Ukraine will send a team to the United States to start talks on a new draft mineral deal that would give the US access to Ukraine’s valuable mineral resources. “The international arena is currently focused on the ceasefire, discussions on treaties and many other issues” the bishop said. “Unfortunately, all these talks are going nowhere. In fact, what we are witnessing is exactly the opposite: the Russian army is increasing its number of troops to 150,000. This is not a sign of a ceasefire, nor is it a sign of a willingness to sit around the negotiating table. In fact, it’s a sign of a people preparing for war on an even larger scale.”
“The question we should all be asking ourselves today is: what am I doing for peace?”, says the bishop.
He added: “In prayer we can try to discern the deepest meaning of so much suffering. All we can do is to entrust all that we endure into God’s hands. All we can do is entrust to God’s hands the lives that others are trying to take from us. But in spite of the demonic intent to inflict pain, we have faith that God our Father welcomes into His arms all those who have died, all the victims of this senseless war. But we, who are still pilgrims in this wounded land, are faced with the question, ‘What am I to do?’”
The bishop expresses a term that, as he says, no one wants to hear, namely, the “conversion of Russia.” “This is a phrase that someone should have the courage to utter: to say openly what is wrong with what is being done, and to point out what needs to be changed. When someone will have the courage to say this, the world will begin to change. Not until then.” “Faced with this reality of war,” Monsignor Ryabukha continues, “we are completely powerless. There is nothing we can do. But even in this state of utter powerlessness, there is something that no one can take away from us. After Pentecost, when the first Christians went out to proclaim the Good News, someone much more powerful than their voices persecuted them. That someone was Saul. But God stopped him, He transformed his life, He brought him to conversion.”
“I firmly believe that even if the world is unwilling and unable to do anything to stop the enemy of life, sooner or later even this war will end because God will intervene. And my people, after so much unjust and undeserved pain and suffering, will finally see the light, they will finally enjoy freedom and the dignity of human life.”
