Watching Trump Repeat Putin’s Lie Fills Ukrainian Pastor with Fear

By Jill Nelson - Posted at Christianity Today:

Published February 28, 2025

Oleg Magdych was there when the war began. He knows who started it.

Oleg Magdych was driving supplies to Ukrainian troops in the eastern Donetsk region three years ago, on February 24, 2022. He remembers stopping for gas at 5 a.m. That’s when he heard it: Russian shelling in three different directions.

The invasion had begun.

The sound of those exploding shells confirmed the nondenominational Ukrainian pastor’s fear: The Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders—more than 100,000 soldiers amassed to the north and east—was not just a show of strength and a negotiating tactic by Russian president Vladimir Putin, but indeed a harbinger of assault on Ukraine.

If his ears didn’t convince him, Magdych also saw the invasion with his eyes. Russian planes came out of the sky to drop bombs on the Ukrainian military outpost a mile away.

Magdych immediately turned around and went back to Kyiv to evacuate his family and join the fight to protect the capital, he told Christianity Today. He has continued working to support the defense of his country for the past three years as a chaplain and commander of a volunteer battalion that specializes in medical evacuations.

He also joined the fight on social media, trying to post enough to counter Russian lies about the war.

“They have special divisions within their army whose job is to get online and make comments on social media,” Magdych said. “It’s hard to beat that.”

In the past three years, Magdych has witnessed the rising tide of Kremlin propaganda. He’s seen American evangelicals and conservative journalists repeat as facts things he knows are not true. Now he’s even seen the president of the United States taken in by the falsehoods.

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