Photo: © AP Photo/Max Vetrov
Local residents carry out belongings from a building damaged by shelling in Donetsk, Ukraine
War and Peace In Ukraine, The Salvation Army offers hope in the midst of destruction
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n Donetsk, Ukraine, the signs of civil war are everywhere. Houses are riddled with bullet holes. Buildings are burned and charred. There is often no water, no electricity and very little food. Even with a ceasefire between the Ukrainian government and the proRussian rebels signed in September, shelling continues, lives are lost and a city sits in ruins. The fighting forced The Salvation Army to evacuate its corps officer in Donetsk in July, a decision Major Beat Rieder and Major Annette Rieder-Pell, divisional leaders, made out of necessity. “Donetsk is under siege—it is the worst of the worst,” says Major Beat Rieder. “We had to shut down corps activity.
BY KRISTIN OSTENSEN, STAFF WRITER
We couldn’t let him stay there.” The officer, Captain Yuri Pomytkin, was transferred to nearby Kharkiv where he helps others like himself who have been forced from their homes. “We grieve when we do not understand; we empathize with people and share their pain and loss. We’re worried for our children, friends and acquaintances,” Captain Pomytkin says. “We are like Christ’s disciples in a boat in the middle of the storm. It is not easy—we cannot quell the storm—but we know that the Lord does not leave us, even for a minute. He is there.” A Nation at War To date, approximately 3,000 people
have died as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, and a million have had to leave their homes, becoming refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs). For those living through the conflict, the situation is almost unbelievable. “If someone had told me a year ago that, in 2014, I would be living in a time of war in Ukraine, I would have thought it was a bad joke,” says Captain Victor Stasiuc, program co-ordinator at divisional headquarters in Kyiv (Kiev). For the past year, he has watched as his country has descended into civil war. Protests erupted on November 21, 2013, after the Ukrainian government announced it would withdraw from trade negotiations with the European Salvationist • November 2014 • 9