UGCC Head in the 197th Week of War: Russia Commits Deliberate Mass Murder of Civilians
Today, the innocent blood of Ukrainian children speaks to the conscience of all people of good will. This was stated by His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, in his traditional video address during the 197th week of the full-scale war that Russian criminals unleashed on peaceful Ukrainian land.
As the Primate noted, this week was marked both by the remarkable heroism of the sons and daughters of Ukraine in defending their homeland and by new crimes against humanity committed by the occupiers on our long-suffering Ukrainian land.
“We were all particularly shocked by the tragedy that occurred in Ternopil. On the night of November 19, Russian criminals killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds in a massive rocket attack on civilians—among the dead were three children… This is no longer a war, no longer a confrontation between the military forces of two countries — this is deliberate mass murder of civilians. It sounded especially cynical in reports from the Russian side, where they wrote that they had achieved their goals with this crime. They emphasized once again that this was the deliberate killing of civilians,” the Head of the Church sorrowfully noted.
“Those three children,” His Beatitude Sviatoslav said, “whom the Russians killed in Ternopil, remind us of the 668 Ukrainian children who have died in the four years of this war.”
The spiritual leader also noted that this week, on November 21, Ukraine celebrated the Day of Dignity and Freedom, a day when two transformational events in Ukrainian society took place in different periods: the Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity.
This week, we also commemorated another tragedy that continues to afflict the consciousness and hearts of Ukrainians as a post-genocidal nation experiencing a new genocide in this war: “We honored all the victims of the Holodomor—those innocently killed by the artificial famine organized by Stalin’s communist regime. The slogan of these days of remembrance is the words of the World Congress of Ukrainians: ‘We remember — the world recognizes.’
Read also:
Video Message of the Head of the UGCC on the 197th Week of the Full-Scale War, November 23, 2025
His Beatitude Sviatoslav emphasized that every year we speak to the world about the wounds and tragedies of Ukraine, not to avenge anyone, but to prevent similar tragedies from happening again — neither to Ukraine nor to any other nation.
“In these days of remembering the tragedies of the past and experiencing the tragedies of the present, we pray for all those who have been forgotten or whom history has tried to forget,” he added.
The UGCC Department for Information
