A Ukrainian bishop has lamented what he describes as a lack of international response to the ongoing conflict in his country.
It comes as Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet face to face for the first time in six years to discuss Russia's war with Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will not be at the talks taking place in Alaska on Friday.
Bishop Maksym Ryabukha of Donetsk has expressed frustration at the lack of international outcry over continued Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine, where he said conditions are becoming “increasingly worse”.
Speaking ahead of the crunch meeting, the bishop told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that people in Ukraine feel "forgotten".
“What hurts most is seeing that the world remains silent while civilian areas are bombed and people are killed,” he said.
“From a practical standpoint, we can’t see a significant response from the world.”
He added: “The worst isn’t the bombs, it’s the feeling of being forgotten, feeling alone or of being of no value to anybody.”
Bishop Ryabukha, 45, oversees Donetsk, Luhansk, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia but half of his exarchate is under Russian occupation. The cathedral remains closed, and church operations are heavily restricted.
“Before the war we had over 80 parishes, and now we have only 37 active parishes,” he said.
“The rest were closed, occupied or destroyed. The laws of the occupation force forbid any affiliation with the Catholic Church, either Greek-Catholic or Latin rite, and it is very difficult to provide any sort of ministry there.
"My exarchate no longer has any priests in these territories, all our churches have been destroyed, or they are closed and people are not allowed to attend them.”
Life near the frontline is especially difficult, with one boy telling him that his entire family narrowly escaped death when they realised a bomb was about to hit their home in the middle of the night. In an instant, their home was turned into a "crater".
"We feel helpless, because it is as if nobody sees what is happening," said Bishop Ryabukha.
He continued, “The only thing that gives us hope is that God is stronger than the evil we can find in the world.
"We look at daily life from the perspective of heaven, because sooner or later everything will end, and that end is called paradise.
"The only question is how to get there. Every day is a new opportunity to take steps in that direction, and we do what we can.”
Despite years of war, he celebrates the fact that his eparchy now has 19 seminarians, many of them raised in parish youth groups.
“Both the boys and the girls are searching for meaning, they are brave in the face of life, and they have grown so much as human beings," he said.
"The psychological drama of war causes many children to lose the ability to read, write or speak.”
ACN has provided trauma counselling for children and bereaved families, as well as safe spaces with light and heating during winter power cuts.
