War in Ukraine
'We don’t lose our temper. God and your prayers help us.’
As Friends in Britain awoke on 24 February to hear the terrible news that Russia had launched an attack on Ukraine, Quakers in Kyiv told the world over social media: ‘We’ll be grateful for your prayers.’
‘We don’t know anything about how our traditional Meeting for Worship will go. It is not clear whether the internet and electricity will be available, whether we will be in the capital or evacuated. Today all Kyiv people were warned that the city will be bombed. And that all citizens should be ready to hear the sound of sirens [and] go to the bomb shelter. We don’t lose our temper. God and your prayers help us.’
As events escalated ‘quickly and frighteningly’ – in the words of Philip Austin, from the Northern Friends Peace Board (NFPB) – Friends wrestled with how best to respond, creating resource pages and funding networks. Many prayed and joined online Meetings for Worship with Friends in Moscow and Ukraine.
Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) European and Middle East Section (EMES) supported Quakers in countries close to Ukraine. In July, a school created with the help of Estonian Quakers for war refugees offered places to nearly 1,600 students, while the Tallinn Friends Group expanded the Alternative to Violence Project (AVP) to local Russians. Several British Quakers – including Stratford-upon-Avon Meeting – helped house Ukrainian refugees.
As the year ended with the war dragging on, Friends discussed, via a Woodbrooke session, how to support Russian human rights defenders, in a country held in a tight authoritarian grip.
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