Russia’s missiles against Ukrainian cities continue despite Kyiv pressing for better air defenses and wider Western support. Chad Connelly, founder and CEO of Faith Wins who recently visited Ukraine, says Americans should back stronger air defenses and sanctions to help the nation fight for its freedom.
Connelly served as the Republican National Committee’s first national director of faith engagement, a role he says helped mobilize pastors and faith leaders during the 2016 cycle. He served in the U.S. Army’s Armor branch and has conversed with more than 82,000 pastors and faith leaders about civic engagement. He recently traveled through Poland into Ukraine, visiting Lviv and Kyiv, meeting local officials and clergy, and spending time with the children’s rescue nonprofit Save Ukraine.
“Rolling into the country, you could be in the hills of South Carolina,” he says. “It is beautiful, and the people are fabulous.” The “fervor for freedom” impressed him, he says. “I watched the city stop at 9 a.m. to play the national anthem and honor the war dead.”
The faith leaders he met with spoke “about PTSD, suicide, and broken families,” Connelly says. “They pleaded, ‘We need America. We are standing for freedom.’” He adds that meeting clergy across denominations—and the chief rabbi—“brings it to life,” because “people coming off the front lines are not just physical casualties but mental and emotional casualties.”
He says the killing of civilians haunts him. “What kind of person targets civilians? We stood in a middle-class apartment complex where 31 people were killed, nine of them children. I don’t see anything of military significance—there’s a school next door and a small shopping area—yet they hit the apartments.” Sirens are a normal part of daily life, he says. “We need some kind of ‘Iron Dome’ around the cities to protect civilians. They will fight their fight, but they need help shielding the people.”
Connelly argues against claims that Ukrainians cannot stay in power. “I see a resolve for freedom,” he says. “They have their own identity and nation.” He echoes Sen. Lindsey Graham’s argument about U.S. interests. “Ukraine performs better militarily than predicted, and it hasn’t cost a drop of American blood in combat,” he says. “That’s a win for people who love freedom.”
He says the American media does not share all the information. “People back home are oblivious because they get a bare, surface story.” Direct exposure changes minds, he says. “I went back and told pastors the story, and they were stunned.”
Few people know about the kidnapping of kids, according to Connelly. “We stood on a bomb- and bullet-proof bus used to rescue them, and we met children as young as five,” he says. “Some were indoctrinated into communist thinking, some were thrown on the front lines. It is unspeakably awful.”
Ukraine’s leaders, he says, understand the ideology they are resisting. “I met the majority leader of parliament and saw on his book shelf, ‘What Everyone in the Free World Should Know About Russia,’” he says. “We share a solidarity in fighting godless, Marxist statism. It takes God off the throne and puts the state there.”
According to Connelly, President Trump is right to press Europe to get off Russian oil if they want tougher sanctions. “America has borne the burden a long time, and leverage matters.” He says public opinion is moving. “Americans support advancing sanctions,” he says. “Common sense says stop funding the war you say you want to end.”
