A lot of people in Kherson are missing - Pastor Deinekin about Russian occupation

Ukrainian pastors Serhiy Deinekin and Oleh Derkachenko shared their memories on Espreso TV.

"I told people that I would not abandon them under any circumstances. I will be the last person to leave this church if anything happens."

Serhiy Deinekin is the pastor of the Baptist Christian church in the renowned Chornobaivka. The man recalls how the congregation and he himself resisted the invading Russian forces.

“They wanted to show that they were good, that they were kind. So they brought a truck, but people didn't take it. Well, there were some who did. But for the most part, people refused en masse. They came to the corner of the street, drove there, and then left. Our guys started coming up and burning it. They would pour gasoline right on the street and set it on fire.”

The pastor remembers how Russian soldiers tried to recruit him. But the man refused and even declared that he would leave his native Chornobaivka if the Russians stayed there forever. His authority among the local people saved him from reprisals. But there were still threats: at one point, he was hooded and taken away for interrogation.

“They started the interrogation. And on Facebook, I used to keep a page where I wrote every day about what happened in our lives, where we were, what we did, how we evacuated the dead.”

“They started, and of course, they could see and read all of this. So they said: ‘Oh, Nikolaevich, you wrote about Crimea. You’re facing Crimea.’”

And this here is Oleh Derkachenko, pastor of the Kherson Baptist Christian church. He put up ideological resistance to the Russians in the occupied city.

“I even held prayer streams for about three months. Every morning I would wake up and post these videos on YouTube.”

“In the Holy Scriptures, there are many stories about how the enemies of Israel, stirred up by God, began to strike themselves. So let’s pray, friends, that the Russians will now start to strike themselves.”

Pastor Oleh streamed not only for YouTube but also for Ukrainian soldiers.

“We lived so that from the window in the yard we could see the Antonivka Bridge. And we filmed the movement of Moscow’s troops. We passed this information to our military. Well, not directly to the military themselves, but through intermediaries. There was a resistance movement here.”

“Chornobaivka was a different place. Kherson lived its own life, everything was normal and calm there. But here, every day, ten people were taken to the basements.”

The invading Russian forces quickly realized they were not welcome in the Kherson region. The refusal of their humanitarian aid and the rise of the partisan movement led to the persecution of the civilian population.

"After every... one, two, three Chornobaivka strikes — four, five — they kept looking for those who were giving away their positions. In our church, there’s a person whose son was killed. They shot him right near his home. They killed him because he would walk his dog, observe the coordinates, and pass the information to our people."

Pastor Serhiy himself came within a step of execution. While delivering humanitarian aid, the Russians at a checkpoint began checking phones.

"They smashed phones, broke tablets, stomped on everything. And I realized they were checking everything. I also knew that on my phone, there were recordings — how they entered, how they landed, the coordinates we sent to our military."

"A lot of people in Kherson simply disappeared without a trace. I think we will eventually find many of them dead, buried somewhere. Many were arrested and taken away."

In the end, however, the prayers of the pastors in the Kherson region were heard. On November 11, the Ukrainian Armed Forces liberated the right-bank part of the region. Yet the horrors of the occupation will never be forgotten by the clergy.