Precarious road to Republican US support of Ukraine runs through evangelicals

October 14, 2024

By Ukraine

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In the final weeks of campaigning for the U.S. election, a top focus of Donald Trump has been rebooting a wave of evangelical support that proved crucial to his victorious 2016 presidential campaign.

“I’ll tell you another (group) that don’t vote, I love these people, evangelical Christians,” Trump, the Republican party’s presidential candidate, said at a rally on October 6.

“If (evangelicals) did vote, we couldn’t lose an election.”

However, in the run up to the high-stakes election, where Trump seeks a second term, he isn't the only one courting evangelicals. The mostly conservative group has for months been a focus of Ukrainian lobbying efforts seeking to expand and cement Republican support for Ukraine.

The hope is that by exposing Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine as one that involves Moscow persecuting and killing Christians, including evangelicals, Americans in Trump’s MAGA movement — specifically the influential religious right — could shift their position toward supporting Ukraine.

Instead of echoing Trump in questioning American support for Ukraine in its existential fight for survival, efforts underway aim to convert them to a pro-Ukrainian stance — reaching out to help Ukraine as the victim, not Russia as the aggressor.

Such efforts proved effective in getting House Speaker Mike Johnson, an evangelical himself, to allow Ukraine's half-year-delayed $61 million aid package to pass in April. But with nearly 80% of evangelicals voting for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and 62% of Republicans saying the U.S. is not responsible for helping Ukraine, long-term backing from Johnson and the influential evangelicals base of Trump’s MAGA movement isn’t a given come election day on Nov. 5.

Johnson made this reality clear on Oct. 11, saying, "I don't have an appetite for further Ukraine funding, and I hope it's not necessary."

"If President Trump wins, I believe that he actually can bring that conflict to a close. I really do. I think he'll call (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and tell him that this is enough," Johnson added in an interview with Punchbowl News.

`Ukraine’s evangelicals spreading the word to America’s faithful`

Mark Sergeyev, a displaced person from Russian-occupied Melitopol in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia Oblast, is one of the many evangelicals brought to the U.S. in recent months. In July, he took a break from volunteering as a chaplain on the front lines to travel to Washington.

He carried with him a message for Congress: Russia’s full-scale invasion is a “spiritual war” against Ukraine and Western civilization.

“I’m a fifth-generation evangelical Christian, my parents, they were always evangelical Christians and they’ve been persecuted,” Sergeyev said in his testimony before lawmakers.

“Russians are making a weapon of religion, and they are trying to make my father use the role of spiritual leader to praise their invasion,” he added, describing what he recalled as a chaotic scene outside his church in early 2022 when Russian soldiers threatened his father if he didn’t record a video in front of the church saying Melitopol is Russian territory.

From the 2014 Russian killing of Ukrainian Protestants in Slovyansk when Russia launched its first invasion of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region to the destruction of 600 houses of worship in the full-scale invasion’s first two and a half years, Sergeyev’s testimony has historical undertones.

To make his message more relatable for the conservative American lawmakers in the room, Sergeyev referenced the famous televangelist Joel Osteen and his Texas megachurch.

"I was born in a free country, my father was a senior pastor of Melitipol Christian Church,” Sergeyev said in his testimony. “Some American visitors often compare us to Joel Olsteen's Lakewood Church from Houston … we have a big stage, a big worship team."

Following Sergeyev’s testimony, Republican Senator from Mississippi Roger Wicker said, “Our witnesses today remind us of a tragically overlooked victim of the dictator Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, and that’s the Ukrainian evangelical community,” according to Steven Moore, a Kyiv-based former Republican staffer on the Hill who testified with Sergeyev and spoke with the Kyiv Independent.

The U.S.-based nonprofit Defenders of Faith and Religious Freedom in Ukraine took Sergeyev to Washington. The group is one of the many organizations that, along with evangelical leaders and lobbying groups, believe that the road to winning over and sustaining U.S. and Republican Party support for Ukraine is through America’s evangelical Christian communities.

There are nearly 90 million evangelicals in the U.S., 82% of whom are polled to vote for Trump in November. While their turnout is critical for Trump’s election chances, their voting will also help shape which party controls the U.S. legislature and future foreign policy.

As such, winning over their hearts and minds is key for Kyiv’s long-term survival and hopes of victory over Russia.

The passage of $61 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine in April has largely been credited to the multi-pronged evangelical levers pulled to convince Speaker Johnson — after reportedly getting approval from Trump himself — to stop delaying its approval and swiftly adopt it.

Days before the aid bill was adopted, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said in an opinion piece published in one of Washington’s main newspapers that Ukraine’s nearly one million evangelicals are the largest in Europe.

In the piece, titled “Ukraine’s evangelicals need U.S. support,” Yermak describes the “long history” of American-Ukrainian evangelical cooperation, calling on the two sides to come together to “ensure religious tolerance in Ukraine.”

Appealing to evangelicals' Christian values is as much about drumming up support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia as it is combatting Kremlin propaganda narratives that have permeated conservative political camps in the U.S.

Even without propaganda, the view some Americans have of idolizing Russian values is enough to have to combat. Twenty-four percent of Republican primary voters believe Russia promotes and encourages traditional family values, according to polling done immediately following April’s aid package.

In Russia, however, religion, like politics, is heavily controlled, with the dominant Russian Orthodox Church serving Kremlin interests. Other faiths are suppressed or contained, including evangelicals.

In contrast, religious freedom has typically thrived in Ukraine, where the Orthodox Christian faith is the largest but by no means dominant in a competitive and friendly environment where large portions of the population are also protestant or Catholic. They, along with religious leaders of Muslims and Jews, jointly condemn Russia’s invasion and its war crimes.

Russia has also used religion to justify its war against Ukraine as needed to “de-Nazify” the country even though Zelensky is of Jewish roots.

Moore, who founded the Ukraine Freedom Project, says he’s indirectly fighting a disinformation battle against far-right media star Tucker Carlson and conspiracy theorist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

“Wow, these people are like me,” American Christians respond when Moore shows them a video of Russian soldiers interrupting a Ukrainian church service, allowing his message to resonate with American churchgoers.

Carlson and Greene, Moore says, are feeding Russian propaganda to the same Republicans he’s reaching with his messaging of Ukrainian freedom. The conservative idols are partly responsible for the false claim popular among the right that Ukraine is “persecuting Christians,” allegedly due to the Ukrainian parliament’s Aug. 20 potential banning on the Kremlin-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and thus, further amplifying conservative opposition for sending U.S. aid to Ukraine.

“There is no similar country to evangelicals and Catholics than Ukraine, but there’s that misinformation out there,” Congressman Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska told the Kyiv Independent. “I heard it back home, a lady said ‘Why is Ukraine against Evangelicals?”

This is why Moore says he continuously shuttles between Kyiv and Washington, solely to compile Republican support for Ukraine. However, in an election teetering in the margin of error in polls, every vote counts, which is why the Democratic presidential campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris has an evangelical outreach strategy.

`Tales of Russian persecution open eyes and win over hearts`

One message Moore says gets through to Republicans is the story of Viktor Cherniivaski, a Ukrainian evangelical who says a Russian Orthodox priest watched Russian soldiers torture him. Another is Ukrainian religious freedom being threatened by the “evil axis” of Russia and its allies in its war against Ukraine which are seen as a threat to Western civilization at large: China, Iran, and North Korea.

Putting the war into this context could trigger more conservative buy-in. When Moore says Russia is using the same Iranian drones against Ukraine that Tehran is using against Israel, he gains Republican’s attention.

Twelve days before the aid package passed on April 24, Speaker Johnson received a letter urging him to pass aid for Ukraine from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“I am writing to share the concerns of our convention in continuing to support the people of Ukraine in their struggles to protect their national sovereignty,” the letter read. “We support the work of Congress in providing additional support to Ukraine and welcome Congress to take action to prevent further loss of life.”

Ryan Burge, a political scientist and Baptist minister, said the ERLC represents the elite side of a divide within American evangelicals.

The ERLC’s former president was joined by the Baptist Union of Ukraine in another letter to the speaker.

“We humbly ask you to consider the plight of Christians,” the letter reads.

When former President Trump first appeared at the Republican National Convention in July with his running mate JD Vance, an evangelical from Odesa, Ukraine, Pavlo Unguryan, was working the crowd of Republicans. To combat Russian propaganda that Unguryan says reaches Republicans, he knows it’s not just about getting the message to Speaker Johnson.

He spent the RNC telling fellow conservatives about the repeated history of Russia’s targeted repression of religions inside Ukraine that fall outside of Russian Orthodoxy.

Speaking to as many Republicans as possible at the RNC, Unguryan explained to conservatives that they can maintain their geopolitical, economic, and military concerns around the war while also supporting further U.S. aid to Ukraine because the war is “spiritual.” Russia wants to attack all Christian civilization in the West, Unguryan tells Republicans.

The various efforts from Unguryan and others did not conclude with the April aid package.

In June, Zelensky became the first head of state to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Kyiv, a government-hosted event Unguryan brought to Ukraine and replicated off America’s annual gathering by the same name where politicians and guests gather to pray.

“We pray for the continued strength of the Ukrainian forces, the safety of the Ukrainian people, and lasting peace in your homeland,” Speaker Johnson said in his video address at Kyiv’s prayer breakfast.

Johnson’s partial shift towards supporting Ukraine and its eventual passage signaled that the strategy was successful and worth continuing. That is why Unguryan plans to return to Washington in early December, just after the inauguration of the 47th president, regardless of who is elected.

For Kyiv, this work wasn’t just important for one aid package, or any current situation on the front line. American evangelicals are an important part of a long-term building block for the future support Ukraine will need from the U.S., said Jonathan Katz, a national security expert at the Brookings Institute.

`Winning over top Trump ally speaker Johnson`

An evangelical of the vast Southern Baptist denomination from Louisiana, Johnson, who was largely seen as responsible for the stalling and eventual passing of the April aid package, has said he intends to retain speakership after the 2024 presidential election.

“Mike Johnson, he’s not a part of the discourse, he’s not a thought leader,” Burge said after speaking with many evangelical leaders. “I think they all understand that he is the least bad option.”

However, the Ukrainian faith leaders who’ve gone to Washington and sent letters to the speaker have gotten through as Johnson has spoken more about the issue. On the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington, Johnson deviated into a passionate and personal tone, detailing his frustrations with Russia’s killing of Christian Ukrainians, tying it back to American religious freedom.

“The communists always do this, they go after the Christians first,” Johnson said. “Why? Because they believe they owe an allegiance to a power higher than the government, than the state. And so you have to eliminate that… And it’s vicious and vile, and it shows exactly what Putin and his regime is all about.”

Despite spending years as a Republican staffer on the Hill and being raised evangelical, Moore was pleasantly surprised to hear these remarks from Johnson. Moore had just returned home from visiting the site of the Okhmatdyt children's hospital attack in Kyiv when he listened to the speaker.

“After seeing that and hearing Johnson say the things you want a leader to say on national security, that was really cool,” Moore said.

Although it’s unclear how far Johnson will allow his evangelical connections to take him in supporting further aid to Ukraine, he isn’t alone on principle.

Razom for Ukraine, an advocacy group in Washington, has garnered support for Ukraine in crucial swing districts in the South and Midwest by engaging with evangelical communities and sharing insight into the loss Christian Ukrainians are experiencing.

In March 2024, Daniel Balson of Razom took a team to Shreveport, Louisiana, Johnson’s hometown. Balson brought Roman Rubchenko, a Ukrainian basketball player with him, who went on a local news program and delivered messages about Ukraine needing sustained support to the conservative state of Louisiana, where he used to play college basketball for a school widely revered in the state.

“The focus of Shreveport — we wanted people there to see themselves in Ukraine, to see themselves as connected to the country,” Balson said.

Johnson’s Shrevport-based team was in a listening capacity when they met with Razom, with the Republican’s staffers open and wanting to learn. Less than two months later, Johnson allowed Ukraine to receive the $61 billion in aid.

“Mike Johnson is in some ways a weather vape,” Matt Taylor, who studies the intersection of evangelicals and politics at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies said. “He is a creature of the religious right, he tends to kind of try to triangulate and find the optimal position that will offend the least evangelicals while also trying to not get sideways with Trump.”

From Shreveport to Wisconsin, when Balson returns to Washington after engagement tours with multi-religious communities, lawmakers on the Hill want to know what he heard and saw in their districts. In these settings, photos — shared with Balson by Moore in Kyiv — of a Protestant’s entire backside bruised from a beating delivered by Russian state security serve useful for Balson’s message.

And when Balson is in a district hostile toward Ukraine, he reminds voters that, like taxes, childcare, and housing, foreign policy is subject to political pressure, and thus their emotional response to religious freedom is enough to impact conversations in Washington.

Speaker Johnson reminded Kyiv of this very matter in late September when — amid exchanged hostilities between Trump and Zelensky — he signed a letter recommending Zelensky fire his U.S. Ambassador for his visit to an arms manufacturer in a key swing state, Pennsylvania. Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, attended the visit. Republican politicians were not invited.

However, given that Johnson already faced threats to oust him as speaker, efforts from the various organizations working in this space are focused on the entire Republican base. Moore, of Ukraine Freedom Project, said he would be disappointed to see Johnson lose the speakership, as he sees him as a good offset to Trump’s running mate JD Vance, especially on Ukraine.

`Continued efforts of outreach to get the ear of US lawmakers`

When Sergeyev, the chaplain, testified in a small room on the Hill, the congressman who Sergeyev most needed his message to reach, Speaker Johnson, wasn’t present.

Elsewhere on the Hill, up in the Capitol’s robust gallery during the fiery speech of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu that day, two evangelicals sat together watching the procession. One of them was Speaker Johnson and the other, invited as his guest, was Gary Marx, a Republican strategist.

After attending Kyiv’s prayer breakfast in June, Marx took to the conservative-leaning Washington Times, writing, “Patriarch Kiril of the Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate has called Russia’s attack on Ukraine a ‘holy war,’ which is synonymous with the Muslim concept of jihad. Ukrainian Christians simply want to live in a free society and worship God as they see fit, just like American evangelicals.”

Marx, who leads the organization Defenders of Faith and Religious Freedom in Ukraine, which is part of a $3.6 million effort from Kyiv Global Outreach, took the opportunity to remind conservative leaders in Washington of the religious persecution Russia has pursued in Ukraine.

The long-held relationship between the speaker and Marx represents the larger, delicate, and often behind-the-scenes efforts to expand U.S. support for Ukraine through American evangelicals not letting up.

“If (Russian President Vladimir) Putin suddenly embraced the evangelical community and allowed religious freedom, then we wouldn't really have a leg to stand on but I don’t see that happening,” Marx said.

Unguryan, who was with Johnson on the April day it was decided the aid for Ukraine would pass, said Johnson’s ascent to the speakership was just the next step in their time-tested friendship.

Johnson was swayed to allow the aid to pass because evangelicals, like Unguryan, the former member of the Ukrainian parliament from Odesa, were in his ear with continual messages of Christian suffering in Ukraine, according to Marx.

It was the combination of sharing anecdotal stories and photographs of Ukrainian Christians suffering hardship at the hands of Russians combined with intelligence briefings Johnson received that convinced him to pass the aid, he added.

“When you put the personal along with the professional intelligence briefings together, the case is persuasive,” Marx said. “I think that that's what made the difference for Speaker Johnson.”

Unguryan said he routinely shows Johnson the “real picture” from Ukraine any chance he can, from occupied and burned churches to explaining the ‘holy war’ he says Russia is carrying out similar to the Islamic State’s attacks on Western civilized based on Judeo-Christian values.

Months before the U.S. State Department said the Russian state-run media outlet RT was using Kremlin intelligence to spread propaganda, Unguryan was working to counter what he says are false images created by Russian agents by taking his message of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the West at-large straight to Capitol Hill.

“Russia, as a totalitarian criminal country, wants to have an image of a conservative Christian nation but that’s not the truth, and I try to communicate that with Mike Johnson,” Unguryan said.

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