The priest, who prayed for a Donald Trump moment last year before his near-separation in Butler, Pennsylvania, appealed to the president as a “shield” for thousands of lured Ukrainian children held in Russia.
“On July 13, 2024, I led the call at your rally in Butler, Pennsylvania,” Pastor Jason Challon began a letter to Trump, obtained by the Post.
“Our collective prayer was a shield for you – the shield I sought from God to protect you from the bullets of assassins,” continued Chalon, pastor of the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, southwest of Pittsburgh and father of seven children.
“Mr. President, I will call you to you for the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been lured into Russia,” he wrote.
After his open Benedict at Butler, Chalon told the audience that Trump needs to be kept prayer in the event of an assassination attempt.
Minutes later, gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks tried to take Trump's life and shot the audience for eight rounds.
“You were saved by God for a reason,” reads Chalon's letter to Trump. “You have the opportunity to play a historic role in saving tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and bringing them back into their families.”
According to Ukrainian estimates, Russia took over 19,000 Ukrainian children to Moscow's territory over the course of the three-year war.
Reports say some children are sent to military training camps and others to “reeducation” camps away from their families.
The United Nations characterizes the deportation of Russian Ukrainian children as belonging to a “war crime” and called on Kremlin Tyrant Vladimir Putin to release their children to their parents.
Chalon told the Post that the Trump administration is focusing on “money” and other assets in negotiations with Russia and Ukraine, but it's important not to forget about missing children.
“There's a lot of talk about money, rare earth mineral resources. But no one is talking about Ukraine's resources. It's that child. No one insists that this resource will be placed before the negotiated peace,” he said.
During a radio interview with Fox News' Brian Kilmead last week, Trump mentioned the possibility of talking to Putin about the children he was invited to in future conversations.
“I believe I can, yes. I didn't know much about it,” the president said.
“I heard about it yesterday. It's pretty difficult, but I think I can do it.”
In his letter, Chalon asks Trump not to accept a peace agreement that “suspends” children to “Russian evil design.”
“And ask yourself – if Russia's only goal was to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, why would you nap so many children? Why would you castrate Ukrainian prisoners? Russian design ensures that Ukraine's design is far more ominous than preventing it from joining geopolitical alliances.
“The country that rapes women and bomb maternity wards can't trust stolen children,” Chalong told the Post.
Trump and Putin have yet to set a date for their in-person meetings, indicating that their diplomatic missions will have to meet several more times before such meetings take place.
The president may meet with Ukrainian President Voldimi Zelensky at the White House on Friday to sign a framework mineral trade that will create a joint fund for U.S. Woolane.
The White House did not respond immediately to inquiries from the Post.
