CHURCHES in Ukraine have marked the 1000th day of the invasion by Russia with peace prayers and renewed appeals for national hope and endurance.

“The weapons of tyranny are hate, outright lies, and insidiousness — whereas our weapons are unity, truth and faith, love for our native home and people,” the Primate of Ukraine’s independent Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), said in a social-media message on Tuesday.

“A thousand days and nights of danger, anxiety, pain, and loss have also been a thousand days and nights of Ukrainian steadfastness — of struggle, courage and heroism, of perseverance, defence and belief, and of striving, despite everything, for our suffering victory.”

The message was published as Russia angrily condemned the first Ukrainian attack on its territory with United States-supplied long-range missiles. The attack came two days after Russia killed at least two dozen people in mass missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.

Metropolitan Epiphany said that Ukrainians were facing daily “all the hatred, rage, and power” that Russia could throw at them, but remained unbroken in their belief that the “thousand days of terror and bloodshed” had only “proved the irreversibility of the aggressor’s defeat”.

The Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said that the Sunday-morning strikes on Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv, and other towns, and the ensuing funerals, had “testified to the tragedy of the time”.

Many Ukrainians, he said in a video message on Tuesday, were looking back over how they had survived the 1000 days, knowing that Christ was “present in the body of the suffering Ukrainian people, sentenced once again to death, tortured, and killed”.

He continued: “On 24 February 2022, the unjust Russian aggressor brought death and destruction to our Ukrainian land — but even from that dramatic moment, we never stopped believing that God is with us and provides our hope.

“It is the hope of soldiers, volunteers, doctors, rescuers, fathers, mothers, and children — the hope of those who share their last with the needy, who raise the hands of the downtrodden, who help those in extreme need and hopelessness.”

Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed since President Putin launched his “special military operation” against Ukraine, cutting the country’s birth rate by one third and turning ten million citizens — one quarter of the total — into refugees.

Moscow’s forces initially stormed through Ukraine, reaching the outskirts of Kyiv and crossing the southern Dnipro river, but were pushed back during the war’s first year, and currently occupy one fifth of the country, including its eastern Donbas region and southern Azov Sea coastline.

Total costs of reconstruction and recovery for Ukraine were put at £384 billion by the World Bank last December — almost three times its gross domestic product, more than one quarter of which currently goes on defence.

On Tuesday, Moscow said that President Putin had issued a decree widening his nuclear options in response to President Biden’s weekend decision to authorise Ukrainian use of ATACMS ballistic missiles against military targets inside Russia.

Moscow also branded the US move a dangerous escalation, which risked drawing NATO into war with Russia.

Speaking on Tuesday, however, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, called on Christians to “implore God to convert the hearts of the lords of war”. He said that he still counted on diplomacy and a “sense of responsibility” to avert “nuclear confrontation and a descent into the abyss”.

Pope Francis, in a letter to the Vatican Nuncio in Kyiv, Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, on Tuesday, said that he was aware that “no human word” could “comfort those who mourn the dead, heal the wounded, bring home the children, free the captives, soften the harsh effects of winter, or restore justice and peace. . .

“These words of mine, however, are not mere words, albeit full of solidarity, but a fervent plea to God, the only source of life, hope and wisdom.

“With the belief that God will say the last word about this great tragedy, I bless the entire Ukrainian people, starting with the bishops and priests who have remained close to the sons and daughters of this nation during these thousand days of suffering.”

Among other messages, Ukraine’s Evangelical Baptist Christians announced special prayers this week, and said that the struggle had proved “exhausting”, taking away the most precious people and “bringing pain and injury difficult to bear”.

Ukraine’s Moscow-linked Orthodox Church, the UOC, said that it had “expressed full support” for the country from the beginning of the Russian invasion, and “blessed the army for Ukraine’s defence”.

It said that its leader, Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovsky), had urged citizens “not to panic, and be courageous” when Moscow’s forces crossed the border, and had also called on President Putin “to stop hostilities immediately”, since “such a war has no justification, either with God or with people.”