Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a video last Sunday, timed to be viewed before the Christian observance of Lent.

“Today is Forgiveness Sunday,” Zelensky said in the video posted to his Telegram account on Sunday night. “A day when we always apologized. To each other. To all people. To God.”

Forgiveness Sunday is the final Sunday before Lent. 

“But today, it seems, many have not mentioned this day at all. Have not mentioned the obligatory words: ‘Forgive me.’ And the obligatory answer: ‘God forgives, and I forgive.’ These words seem to have lost their meaning today. At least in part. After everything, we went through.”

“We will not forgive the destroyed houses. We will not forgive the missile our air defense shot down over Okhmatdyt today. And more than five hundred other such missiles that hit our land. All over Ukraine. Hit our people and children. We will not forgive the shooting of unarmed people. Destruction of our infrastructure.”

“We will not forgive.”

“Hundreds and hundreds of victims. Thousands and thousands of sufferings.”

“And God will not forgive.”

“Not today. Not tomorrow. Never.”

“And instead of Forgiveness, there will be a Day of Judgment.”

Zelensky went on to accuse the Russians of “murder.”

“This is murder, deliberate murder,” Zelensky said. “And I have not heard a reaction from any world leader today, from any Western politician, reaction to this announcement. Think about the sense of impunity of the invaders. They announce their planned atrocities. Why? Because there is no reaction. Because there is silence.”

Zelensky threatened Putin specifically.

“There will be no quiet place on this earth for you, except for the grave.”

On Thursday, Zelensky released another video in which he invoked divine retribution.

“The enemy has not succeeded on any of their strategic fronts. They are desperate. They are doomed,” Zelensky said in the video reported by the online Ukrayinska Pravda news site. “Kyiv survived last night and withstood another airstrike. Our air defense has done its work.”

“Russia targeted the Cathedral of the Assumption [Uspensky Sobor] in Kharkiv. One of the oldest Orthodox monuments of the city and the country. During wartime, the Cathedral offered shelter to Kharkiv residents. Shelter for everyone: the faithful and non-believers alike. For everyone: because we are all equal. It is a holy place. Now, wrecked by the war.”

“count on the fact that God’s retribution isn’t instant,” Zelensky is quoted saying. “But He sees. And answers. You cannot hide from His answers. No bunker can protect you from God’s answers.”

Zelensky is Jewish, and the Nazis murdered his great grandfather and his three brothers in the Holocaust. Zelensky has been to Israel several times and has family in Israel. Last Wednesday, Zelensky appealed to world Jewry. 

“I call now on all the Jews of the world — do you not see what is happening here? This is why it’s important for millions of Jews worldwide not to stay silent in the face of such sights. Because Nazism was born in silence,” he wrote in Hebrew on Telegram. 

He later told a news conference he was grateful for “a beautiful picture of people wrapped in the Ukraine flag at the Western Wall.”

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