The inside story of Christians and Ukraine

Christians across Ukraine woke to the sounds of explosions as their Russian neighbors began a bombardment of the Eastern European nation.

“Our safest places are under attack,” said Alexander Rodichev, a church member from Dnipro, a city on the Dnieper River that separates eastern and western Ukraine.

Expecting attacks from the east, where pro-Russian separatists control the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, Rodichev and fellow Christians had made plans to house refugees making their way west.

But the Feb. 24 attacks were reported in cities east and west, said Rodichev, who was preparing to teach at a Bible institute in the capital, Kyiv, when the first explosions sounded.

“I’m on the way to my family,” he told The Christian Chronicle. “(We are) expecting all the people who will be moving from the north part of Donetsk region to stay at our home and church building for the night.”

Rodichev said he and his fellow church members are working to find routes to get refugees to churches in the west.

“They are safer,” he said, “but not safe.”

The Chronicle’s Erik Tryggestad has traveled to Ukraine four times over the last two decades to report on fellow Christians there. As the world’s attention focuses on that Eastern European nation, no journalist is more prepared to explain what it means to our fellowship. Scroll down to read the breaking news as well as Tryggestad’s in-depth explainer on what it all means.