Last year, after hearing reports of Russia’s persecution of Christians in occupied territories, we drove the entire length of Ukraine’s eastern front to capture these stories for our documentary, A Faith Under Siege. We met with pastors who were detained and tortured, saw shuttered churches, and prayed with fellow believers who often had to worship in basements for fear of constant Russian attacks. But we learned that it was not only Christians whose sacred spaces were destroyed and whole communities displaced. Ukraine’s Jewish community has also borne the heavy brunt of Russia’s war.
Before the war, Ukraine’s Jewish community was one of the most vibrant in Europe. An estimated 200,000 people with Jewish heritage called Ukraine home. After centuries of repression and unspeakable cruelty — from czarist pogroms, to the Holocaust, to Soviet suppression largely banning religion — Jewish life in Ukraine had finally begun to flourish after the fall of the Soviet Union. Due to the fierce commitment of Ukraine’s Jewish leaders and backing from world Jewry, synagogues reopened, Jewish schools sprouted up, and cultural life was revived.
This revival did not happen quickly. It took more than three decades to rebuild a sense of trust, safety, and belonging after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Perhaps the clearest sign of Jewish renewal in Ukraine is that its citizens, freely and democratically, elected Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a proud Jew, to lead their country.
But since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, that progress has been violently disrupted. Jewish life in Ukraine, like so much else, is under siege.
Jewish Ukrainians are facing the same fate as Christian communities: families are forced to flee, houses of worship are being destroyed, and faith communities are scattered because of Russia’s invasion.
Most recently, a Russian drone caused significant damage to a historic synagogue in Odesa, a month after a rabbi’s home was struck in Dnipro and another rabbi and his family were targeted by a drone strike in their vehicle. In Kyiv, a Russian strike hit the site of the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial, killing five people and damaging one of the most important Holocaust sites in the world. In Mariupol, Russian forces destroyed the city’s historic synagogue, and during the same siege, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor died without water, hiding in a freezing basement. In Lviv, a missile exploded just steps from the Beis Aharon V’Yisrael Synagogue, shattering windows and damaging the rabbi’s home. In Kharkiv, over 100 Ukrainian Jews were sheltering inside Ukraine’s largest synagogue when nearby explosions sent glass flying through the building. And these are only a few examples.
In occupied territories, Jewish leaders live under threat. Worship is again being driven underground — just like in the Soviet era. It’s no wonder that more than an estimated 30,000 Jews have fled Ukraine since the war began — 15,000 to Israel, and at least 15,000 more to other countries. Thousands of others had to leave their homes for safer locations in Ukraine.
We heard this directly from a leader of Mariupol’s Jewish community, who was targeted by Russian forces because of her Jewish faith. Three armed Russian soldiers entered the Jewish community center and tried to make her distribute Russian passports to her community members – effectively seeking to erase their Ukrainian identity. Not long after, her cousin was arrested, tortured, and killed. Her story is captured here in a short documentary.
“Ukraine was an open country,” Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Moshe Reuven Azman told us. “But now in the occupied territory, it is not safe for the Jewish community. It’s not safe for religion.”
This is not just a humanitarian crisis; it’s a spiritual and cultural erasure. Communities that spent decades rebuilding after some of the most horrific events of the 20th century are now being driven out by Russian aggression in 2025.
This campaign is not only physical — it’s ideological. Losing on the battlefield, Vladimir Putin has turned to something even more insidious: antisemitism. Russian leaders have smeared Ukraine’s Jewish president as a Nazi, accused “ethnic Jews” of trying to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church, and revived dangerous conspiracy theories to justify his war. It’s a propaganda playbook we’ve seen before. Putin fears those with faith, as they will never bow down to him.
More troubling still, the very weapons being used to terrorize Ukraine’s Jewish communities are the same ones targeting Jews in Israel. Iranian-made Shahed drones — used by Russia in Ukraine and by Hezbollah and Iran against Israeli civilians—are being used to strike Ukrainian cities. This unholy alliance between Moscow and Tehran is attacking Jews on two fronts.
Christians cannot remain silent. The Scripture teaches us to stand with the persecuted, to protect the innocent, and to speak truth in the face of tyranny. That responsibility does not end at our own church doors. When Jews are under attack, whether in Ukraine, Israel, or anywhere else, we must not look away.
Ukraine’s Jewish community is resilient and courageous. In the face of bombs, disinformation, and displacement, they continue to gather, to pray, to remember. But they cannot do it alone.
This is not just a Jewish issue. It is not just a Ukrainian issue. It is a moral issue. And for those of us who believe in faith, freedom, and truth, it is our issue too.
Colby Barrett JD, PE, is an entrepreneur, filmmaker, and former U.S. Marine Corps Captain who led infantry and scout/sniper platoons in the Pacific Rim and Middle East. He is the producer of ‘A Faith Under Siege.’
Steven Moore is a former chief of staff in the U.S. House of Representatives and Founder of Ukraine Freedom Project. He is an executive producer of ‘A Faith Under Siege.’
