Stand Strong With Ukraine
Russia’s winter campaign of terror — targeting grids, power plants and people — is designed to break an exhausted and war-weary people.
As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth year, Ukrainians have met this onslaught with dignity and defiance. Across this beautiful but ravaged land, parishes are stepping up, not just as sacred spaces of faith and spirituality, but as centers of healing and hope.
The war has become a catalyst for love of neighbor: priests, religious and lay faithful are forging new partnerships, discovering creative and faith-filled ways to support those most vulnerable to the misery of winter.
CNEWA has been on the ground in Ukraine since its independence from the Soviet Union, building deep and lasting relationships with its parish churches and their varied works, including seminaries and houses of religious formation, the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv and the nationwide parish-based programs of Caritas Ukraine.
Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, CNEWA has rushed emergency aid to support the humanitarian responses of these partners, who provide food, medicine, shelter and comfort — especially psychosocial and spiritual counseling for families grieving their deceased and maimed loved ones, and returning soldiers, whose wounds mask their trauma.
The needs remain urgent. Every day, Russian drones target energy infrastructure across the country, striking villages and towns as well as its cities, forcing Ukrainians to live without heat and electricity. Millions more have been forced from their homes; family life, shattered.