When Mikhail Pavenko isn’t restoring power lines for Clark Public Utilities, he’s volunteering near the front lines in Ukraine, praying with soldiers, evacuating civilians and delivering aid where missiles have fallen.
The Vancouver resident and U.S. citizen has returned from another mission to Ukraine, his first of 2025. Born in the country and resettled in the U.S. in 1996, Pavenko has traveled back more than a dozen times since becoming a military chaplain in 2015. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, he’s made it a goal to return twice per year, a commitment he says is driven by faith and family history.
His most recent trip spanned just over two weeks in April, split between Ukraine’s southern and eastern fronts. It was his most harrowing experience yet. Though the Trump administration has renewed its push for a negotiated peace deal, Pavenko says Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians have only intensified.
“Under the Trump administration, the attacks on civilians have drastically increased, and on cities beyond the front lines,” he said. “Putin’s become a little more confident, more brazen, unfortunately.”
A more dangerous battlefield under a shifting U.S. policy
One of the most troubling developments, Pavenko said, was the Trump administration’s March decision to temporarily halt the sharing of U.S. intelligence with Ukraine about incoming missile threats — a move he said left civilians blind to the attacks that followed.
March 7 was one of the deadliest days, as 11 Ukrainians were killed and 47 injured from a strike in Dobropillya.
The strike, carried out using Russian Iskander missiles, devastated an entire apartment complex. Pavenko visited the site and said the consequences of the pause in intelligence-sharing were visible and tragic.
“I think taking away intelligence from the Ukrainians that can save lives — I mean, I think that’s horrific,” he said. “That only aided the Russians during that time … the Ukrainians were blind.”
Although the intelligence flow resumed days later, Pavenko said the temporary cutoff had already cost lives. But even with intelligence restored, new and evolving threats continued to endanger civilians and soldiers alike.
During this trip, suicide drones were a constant threat. Pavenko said the prevalence of suicide drone weaponry has been a massive shift from his last visit six months prior.
“The fear was very, very present during this trip just to come back home alive,” Pavenko said. “The war changed… with the mass usage of suicide drones.”
He described the shift as a dark milestone in modern warfare.
“We’re used to artillery, tanks, aviation … but when you introduce the mass use of drones, they can hit a mobile moving target. And they’re a lot cheaper than artillery or hard equipment.”
This trip, he said, showed how the conflict has grown more barbaric, from the use of advanced suicide drones to the destruction of entire civilian blocks with ballistic missiles.
One of the deadliest scenes he witnessed came in Sumy, where Russian forces launched multiple Iskander missiles on Palm Sunday. The first missile hit the Sumy State University Congress Center at 10:15 a.m. A second struck nearby just two minutes later.
“They killed 35 people and injured 130,” Pavenko said. “Women and children were killed. I got to speak with the mother … Her son was killed during the attack and there were no words we could say. I just held her, gave her a hug. That’s the reality of this war.”
Pavenko sees Putin’s strategy as deliberate and genocidal, designed to destroy Ukraine’s identity and spirit through daily bombardments.
“Putin’s a war criminal and a modern Hitler, and (his) goal is to annihilate the state of Ukraine and its identity. He has stolen over 20,000 children. He’s committing horrific war crimes, and you cannot make peace with somebody who came to kill you,” Pavenko said. “Myself and the people of Ukraine are praying hard that Donald Trump will come to realize who Putin is.”
He criticized the U.S. for pressuring Ukraine into surrendering the Crimean peninsula, warning it would set a global precedent for lawlessness.
“To reward Putin with a land grab … it would set a horrific precedent,” he said. “Ronald Reagan would not do that. Ronald Reagan would stand shoulder to shoulder with the people defending themselves.”
Some Trump officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have blamed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for prolonging the war — a claim Pavenko called absurd and insulting.
“In 1942, Churchill came to the White House to ask for help to save his people … Nobody told him he had no cards and nobody made fun of him for not wearing a suit.” he said. “Zelenskyy is doing what any president would do. He’s a father begging for help on the street corner to save his kids.”
Pavenko also pushed back on a common narrative repeated by Russian officials and some U.S. politicians that Ukraine’s interest in NATO provoked the invasion.
“In the middle of this war, Finland joined NATO, which borders Russia. Russia did not invade Finland because of NATO. This war is not about NATO, but that’s the excuse the Russians are using,” Pavenko said. “That excuse took off, unfortunately, in Western media.”
Political confusion at home
Back in Clark County, Pavenko witnessed another kind of conflict — this time at a town hall meeting on Thursday, April 24, with U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, where constituents loudly criticized her recent votes on election legislation.
Despite the backlash, Pavenko left her a handwritten note of support.
“I wrote a note thanking Marie for her very strong position — and also thanking the American people,” he said. “The aid that she’s worked through bipartisan measures has really helped to save innocent women, children … Like, air cover, right? So the Ukrainians have the munitions to shut down Russian drones, Russian missiles. That, in return, saves lives.”
He said he appreciates Gluesenkamp Perez’s willingness to vote independently, even when it carries political risks.
“She thinks very independently,” he said. “She’s shown that she takes votes that don’t fall in line with any party.”
The tone of the town hall left him unsettled.
“I feel like she couldn’t get a word in,” he said. “Every politician needs to be able to answer for their votes … but I also think that people need to have cordiality and respect … Profanity and shouting, that’s not a healthy environment.”
A warning — and a story of hope
Pavenko worries that some Americans still don’t grasp what’s at stake.
“The outcome of this war will determine the type of world that our children will live in,” he said. “Are they going to live in a world where laws and order are obeyed — or where thugs and tyrants can pick on the little guy and get away with it?”
Even so, moments of grace still break through. He recalled meeting a soldier during a hospital visit, a man who believed divine intervention had saved him and his unit.
“They were surrounded, no food, no ammunition,” Pavenko said. “He said, ‘God, if you’re there, please save us.’ The next day this immense fog rolled in … the drones couldn’t see anything. They used that fog to retreat.”
The soldier’s message was simple: “I know that was God protecting us.”
