Rev. Mark Burns, a televangelist from Easley who has been called Donald Trump’s “top spiritual advisor” by Time magazine, agreed with the president last month when he halted weapons and aid to Ukraine.
But now back from a fresh fact-finding trip to the war-torn nation, Burns has come off that position and is urging Trump to send tanks, fighter jets and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine.
Ukraine Chief Rabbi Moshe Azman invited Burns to see the suffering that Russian troops had inflicted on Ukraine’s Jewish, evangelical Christian and other religious worshippers over the past three years of war. Burns, who paid his own way for the trip, told The Post and Courier that synagogues, Orthodox and Protestant evangelical churches had been burned, looted and destroyed and worshippers beaten or killed.
Ukrainian soldiers aren't asking for American money. They are asking for American weapons....but more importantly, they are asking for peace.
— Pastor Mark Burns (@pastormarkburns) April 4, 2025
20k children kidnapped to Russia, 700 religious buildings destroyed, civilians killed at the hands of Russians... Schools bombed.… pic.twitter.com/jpR8FkqhmF
“I have indeed communicated my thoughts and findings to the White House about the situation,” said Burns, who has twice run for Congress, including last year with an endorsement from Trump. "While I haven't yet had the opportunity to brief Senator Lindsey Graham and other South Carolina Republican supporters about my experiences, I'm eager to share my firsthand observations with them soon.”
Burns said he flew to Moldova on March 30 then drove eight hours to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. He hopes other conservatives will trek to Ukraine to assess the facts.
Pastor Mark Burns speaks during the final day of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, July 21. President Donald Trump has called Burns one of his top spiritual advisors. Burns recently returned from Ukraine with an urgent view to share with Trump; people of faith should back Ukraine and protect it from Putin regardless of whether the Ukrainian president grates on their nerves.
“I'm not a lobbyist nor represent any government other than the Kingdom of God,” said Burns, who posted on X that Ukrainians constantly expressed gratitude to Americans and Trump.
"The war in Ukraine is bigger than Democrats or Republicans, the Left or the Right. Whether you dislike President Trump or President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy, real people are dying here," Burns posted to social media.
Burns emphasized that his first loyalty is still to Jesus Christ, followed closely by his loyalty to Trump and America. He maintains that he is optimistic Trump will help Ukraine.
Azman brought Burns to a military hospital in Kyiv to meet veterans and “areas liberated from the Russian invasion of (Ukrainian cities of) Bucha, Irpin, and Borodianka so that he could see first-hand the consequences of the crimes of the Russian army against the civilians,” Azman wrote on social media.
In April 2024, PBS News Hour reported about heavily armed Russian troops breaking down church doors, in one case storming a stage where worshippers were singing then herding the male congregants into the basement. Russian soldiers bluntly said evangelical Christianity was a corrupt American phenomenon that needed to be eradicated.
PBS reported that Russians had destroyed 206 evangelical Protestant churches and executed 40 pastors in Ukraine. As of December, the Ukrainian World Congress said that Russians had executed 50 Ukraine Orthodox priests.
Burns said he heard witnesses describe how Russian soldiers tied pastors’ hands behind their backs, forced them to kneel and then executed them.
Putin's and anti-Semitism
Russia experts debate about whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is anti-Semitic. Putin shocked Israel in 2023 when he hosted Hamas leaders in Moscow just days after the horrific Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
Oxford-educated, Wesleyan University Russian studies professor Peter Rutland has observed Putin for decades.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if during the invasion of Ukraine (that) Russians destroyed synagogues,” Rutland told The Post and Courier. Rutland thinks the Kremlin’s Holocaust denialism is “motivated by opportunism and pragmatism … (Putin’s) calculation of what messages work with the Russian public.”
Putin and his inner circle repeatedly and falsely referred to Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, as a Nazi to justify the invasion and destruction. Putin’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov sparked outrage comparing Zelenskyy to genocidal dictator Adolf Hitler, the German leader who Lavrov said “also had Jewish blood.” Hitler's Nazi regime killed an estimated 6 million Jews during World War II.
Rutland said the Kremlin does secretive focus groups and research to find which messages resonate with Russian citizens and which do not. He believes Kremlin researchers probably discovered that calling Zelenskyy a Nazi was not working.
Pastor, U.S. voters disagree over Trump's stance
Burns, who founded the NOW Television Network in the S.C. Upstate, also took care to denounce fake news. He views reports that Trump turned his back on Ukraine to favor Russia as such.
He reiterated that Russia was the aggressor against Ukraine and has committed war crimes. Ukrainian survivors told Burns how Russian troops urged residents of one neighborhood to tie a white scarf around a sleeve to show they were civilian noncombatants. Burns said witnesses told him Russian soldiers then used the scarves to tie Ukrainians’ hands behind their backs and execute them.
On Feb. 28, Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly scolded Zelenskyy in the Oval Office over his comments as the White House pushed for negotiations to end the ongoing war.
Burns' new favorable view of Ukraine is shared by most Americans, as several polls have shown since that interaction in Washington, D.C.
A NBC poll last month found that 61 percent of registered U.S. voters who responded said they sympathize with Ukraine while 49 percent of them said they believe Trump supports Russia. Only 2 percent of respondents said they sympathize with Russia.
A total of five polls since the confrontation began show that Americans support Ukraine by an average of 59 percent, compared to 3 percent for Russia, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institution.
On March 30, as Burns and the rabbi were meeting Ukrainian survivors, Trump told reporters that he is “pissed off” and “very angry” over Putin’s conduct during ceasefire negotiations. Meanwhile, Rutland noticed that the Russian chat shows and news programs that reflect Putin’s viewpoints were making snarky remarks about Trump. Rutland believes there are indications that Putin is not yet interested in negotiating peace.
"We are talking with Russia. We'd like them to stop. I don't like the bombings," Trump told reporters over the weekend. "The bombing goes on and on. Every week, thousands of young people are being killed. And it's a horrible thing that should have never started, it would have never started if I were president."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also indicated that U.S. patience with Russia over the war is running out. Congress is working on a bill regarding sanctions against Russia should the war continue.
