A well-known pastor and chaplain from Mariupol, Gennadiy Mokhnenko - founder and head of the largest children's Rehabilitation Center "Republic of Pilgrim" and a network of Rehabilitation Centers for adults, author of several books, hero of documentaries-appealed to the parents of Russian soldiers and urged them not to send their children to the slaughterhouse.
In his fervent address to the Russians, Gennadiy Mokhnenko, for whom Russian is his native language, said that he has three biological and 35 adopted children. He has chosen the path of a pastor, but when there is a threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine today, he is ready to take up arms to protect his children, his city, and his land. The pastor asks fathers and mothers of Russian soldiers not to be led to the Kremlin's adventure and protect their children from death.
"In 2014, when my Mariupol was burning and when people were being killed in the city center on Victory Day, May 9, when your troops brought war to my city, I was ready to take up arms and go to protect my children. But thank God, then I did not have to remove my pastoral rank and become a soldier, do not go with weapons to protect my children, because the defenders of Ukraine successfully coped with this task without me. I am a chaplain of the Ukrainian army and now I fulfill my spiritual duties - to serve Ukrainian soldiers and people in the frontline zone," says the pastor.
He said that some of his adopted sons are already soldiers. One of them, who is 25 years old, has already buried 5 of his friends. One of his friends, a 19-year-old boy, was killed by a Russian soldier. "My son tried to resuscitate him until he realized that he was wiping the brain off his face. This guy was an only child in the family," the pastor notes.
"Dear fathers and mothers of Russian soldiers,
The situation is such that your sons in a large-scale war can already be thrown en masse into the hellfire that the Kremlin has started. And then even I, as a priest, will have no choice. I will have to take up arms and stand up for my children. So please do everything you can before it's too late. Stand up to this madness!
I consider myself a person of Russian culture. I believe that we will survive the madness of the Kremlin's scoundrels and see Putin removed from the Kremlin and Lenin removed from the mausoleum...
Fathers and mothers, in Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok, St. Petersburg or Moscow, do not be silent, stop the Kremlin cannibals!...
These are perverts in the third generation of KGB servicemen. They are used to drinking decaliters of blood, do not serve or serve them for your children's dinner! Don't send your kids to the meat grinder!
In these anxious days, I, like many of my fellow countrymen, sign up for territorial defense. Ukrainians, if the Kremlin does not stop, will defend their land and freedom! The price may be very high, but freedom is never given in vain.
Russians, peace be upon you and your children! My eight-year-old children see war on the front line from their bedrooms, my children know what war is. All their childhood is war!
If you don't stop the Kremlin's madmen, tyrants with their imperial adventure, you simply leave us no choice. Do this and don't send your children to Ukraine! Let me just remain a priest, and not retrain as a soldier," Hennady Mokhnenko urged the Russians.