Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin on Wednesday.
Graham said he offered prayers for all three of the world leaders involved in fragile peace negotiations, including Zelensky, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Today I had the privilege of meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin and to have prayer with him. I prayed for him, and I also prayed for President Vladimir Putin and President Donald J. Trump — that God would give these leaders wisdom and give them a path forward to peace,” Graham wrote on Facebook.
Today I had the privilege of meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin and to have prayer with him. I prayed…
Posted by Franklin Graham on Wednesday, May 28, 2025
“The complications in Ukraine and Russia are very difficult, and I believe only God can solve this,” he said.
Zelensky expressed gratitude for Graham’s prayers and for the assistance provided by Samaritan’s Purse, a North Carolina-based humanitarian relief organization Graham joined in the 1970s. Graham has been president and CEO of the organization since the death of its founder Bob Pierce in 1978.
“We are very grateful for the strong support from the American people, the White House and President Trump. Thank you for your prayers and for helping people,” Zelensky told Graham.
Graham, the 72-year-old son of fabled evangelist Billy Graham, was in Berlin to convene the European Congress on Evangelism — an event that was last held in 2000 when it was hosted by his father.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) said the revived European Congress was attended by over a thousand pastors, evangelists, and faith leaders from 55 nations. Major themes of the event included reviving the evangelical spirit, opposing Christian persecution around the world, and pushing back against the image of Europe as a “post-Christian” civilization.
“There’s a younger generation that I believe is taking hold of the Gospel and is taking the challenge of preaching the Gospel to the ends of this Earth,” Franklin Graham said at a press conference he held in Berlin on Tuesday along with his son Will.
“We can do conferences in other parts of the world, but right now, we’re focusing on Europe. And so many missionaries and great church leaders came out of Europe. They came to the United States and evangelized the United States, and then not just the United States, but throughout so much of the world,” he said.
Graham cited the war in Ukraine as a major source of anxiety for European Christians.
“Prayer is the most important thing we can do, and that is to pray for President Putin, President Zelensky, and the leaders in both countries that God would work in their hearts to find a solution to this war,” he said.
“Thousands upon thousands of people have been killed. No one even actually knows the numbers, but we know it’s horrific. And it needs to come to an end. We need to pray for those, but we also need to pray for President Trump, who’s trying to help mediate it,” he added.
“If Christians are quiet, we will lose our freedom to share the Gospel, so we need to stand firm on what the Bible teaches. If there was ever a time to be more bold — it’s today,” he wrote on Facebook after his press conference.
When Graham told delegates at the European Evangelical Conference about his meeting with Zelensky, they responded with a thunderous call for ending the war. Graham concluded the announcement by praying for Putin, Zelensky, and Trump, as he urged others to do:
Father, we pray tonight for President Putin. And Father, we pray that you would give him wisdom, that you would work in his heart, and that he would desire to have peace.
And Father, we pray for President Zelensky, that you would work in his heart, And that desire for peace would be in his heart as well.
And Father, we pray that you would give them a path. A path that would allow them to move forward. Father, we believe you’re the only one who can do this.
We pray for President Trump. Give him wisdom as to what to do and what to say and how he can use his office to bring peace to this part of the world or to help bring it.
God certainly has His work cut out for Him. Zelensky was in Berlin to meet with Chancellor Freidrich Merz and ask for more military support — a request Merz said would be granted.
Zelensky said at a press conference in Berlin that he is also pressing for Ukraine to be invited to the NATO summit at The Hague this summer, a move that would surely antagonize Russia.
“If Ukraine is not present at the NATO summit, it will be a victory not over Ukraine, but over NATO — a victory for Putin,” Zelensky said.
After three days of intense aerial attacks on Ukraine, involving hundreds of suicide drones and missiles, Russia on Tuesday demanded a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) meeting to discuss the threat to peace posed, not by Moscow, but by Europe.
Russian U.N. envoy Dmitry Polyansky claimed the Europeans are attempting to “prevent a peaceful settlement of the war in Ukraine.”
On Wednesday, after expressing frustration with Putin’s belligerence, President Trump appeared to set a two-week deadline for Russia to demonstrate a serious commitment to ending the war.
“Within two weeks. We’re gonna find out whether or not he is tapping us along or not. And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently,” Trump said of Putin.
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