VANCOUVER, Washington — On October 29, Mikhail Pavenko said good-bye to his wife and two young children and boarded a flight to Poland. The Ukrainian American, who repairs power lines for a living, was heading back to the frontlines of the war in Ukraine for his tenth two-week rotation as a volunteer military chaplain since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Pavenko, 39, spoke honestly about his fear on the flight over. In all his life, he said, he has never felt the kind of fear he has experienced while serving in Ukraine. Once he arrives, he deploys straight to the frontlines, where he spends long days ministering to soldiers, helping with evacuations, tending to the wounded, and delivering supplies.

The danger is constant. According to Christianity Today, Russian ballistic missiles, guided bombs, and artillery shells have pounded Ukrainian military bases and cities, but first-person-view attack drones cause the most fear among chaplains and soldiers. Some of these remotely piloted drones can reach speeds of roughly 90 miles per hour and carry warheads powerful enough to disable a tank.

Pavenko had a close call with one in April 2025. Traveling in a pickup with two other chaplains, he stepped out first as they pulled into the driveway of an abandoned home in southeastern Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region and spotted a drone circling a few feet above their heads. He shouted a warning, and the three men ran in different directions as the drone climbed and circled. Then a military truck approached, the drone veered toward it, and it crashed to the ground about 15 feet in front of the vehicle. Pavenko believes a drone jammer on the chaplains' pickup suppressed the signal between the drone and its Russian operator, though such jamming is not always effective. “God's all-powerful mercy and our equipment saved not only our lives but also the lives of others that day,” he said.

Despite the risks, Pavenko keeps returning, sleeping in abandoned homes or alongside Ukrainian soldiers in their bunkers. He said it gives him joy to be doing something “profoundly meaningful.” The work is not easy, he added. “It is difficult to walk up to the grave of a soldier with whom you shared a room with a few months prior.”

Ukraine has more than 400 commissioned military chaplains serving an estimated 800,000 troops, according to the report, with around 700 volunteer chaplains supplementing them, along with volunteers like Pavenko rotating in from other countries. Even so, Ukraine is roughly 40 percent below the number of chaplains it needs to minister effectively to its military personnel. That shortage comes as many soldiers struggle with low morale after nearly five years of full-scale war, and as some fear that allies may abandon Ukraine while Russia intensifies attacks on the energy grid and water systems ahead of winter.

Oleksandr Vovkotecha, head of the Military Chaplaincy Service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told Christianity Today that a chaplain's main job is to be near soldiers and give them a chance to share their struggles when the world around them does not make sense. “In these difficult moments, when you see losses, when you lose your comrades, when you start asking what is the point of this war, some support is really needed,” he said.

Ukrainian chaplain Denis Gorenkov, an evangelical Christian, described the ministry as one of presence. “Spiritual conversations can only happen after I've listened for a long time,” he said. “Chaplains must have a lot of love and a few cigars.” He recalled visiting a wounded soldier in the hospital who asked if he had come to pray. Gorenkov said he would be happy simply to fellowship with the man, and the soldier agreed, saying he was not yet ready for prayer. Gorenkov visited regularly and listened. Weeks later, the soldier approached him at the hospital entrance and asked the chaplain to push his wheelchair up the hill for exercise. The soldier shared how much he longed to drive a car again, and Gorenkov offered to pray that God would heal his legs. The soldier agreed, and a spiritual conversation followed. He is now on the road to recovery, Gorenkov said.

Gorenkov said soldiers often feel they cannot speak openly about their struggles with higher-ranking officers, and they cannot share them with their wives back home, who are dealing with their own burdens of solo parenting amid constant air raids. Chaplains offer confidential conversations that cannot be used in investigations, giving soldiers a place to speak freely. During some of the harder conversations, Gorenkov turns to Psalm 27:3, David's prayer amid danger: “Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.”

The cost of this war is personal for Pavenko. He emigrated with his parents from Ukraine to the United States as a young child in 1996 and has stayed in close contact with family there. One of his uncles, an evangelical pastor at Transfiguration Church in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, lost two sons in 2014 after Russian-backed separatists abducted them from his church. A third son died in 2023 while serving as a military chaplain. In April, a Russian-guided bomb significantly damaged Transfiguration Church. Last month, a Russian bomb destroyed Good News Church in Kramatorsk, pastored by another of Pavenko's uncles, about 15 miles south of Sloviansk. Pavenko described the destruction of the church as a war crime against a holy place.

Still, Pavenko continues to serve and to proclaim hope to those fighting to preserve their homeland. “I think that it's a really specific time in Ukraine right now for the church to spread the gospel and just to be the arms and feet of Jesus in a very practical manner,” he said.