The Kyiv Court of Appeal has postponed until September 30 the consideration of the appeal of Valentyn Adamchuk, who asks to find him not guilty of evading the draft during mobilization. Adamchuk belongs to the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostal) "Living Hope", whose creed prohibits the use of weapons. The Darnytskyi District Court of Kyiv sentenced him to three years in prison for his Christian faithfulness to the commandments and a request for alternative non-military service.

Valentyn came to the court hearing with his wife Taisia, writes on Facebook Yurii Sheliazhenko, a Quaker, who was present at the hearing as an observer from the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection. According to the human rights activist, Valentyn works on the Kyiv Metro (underground subway), has a letter of guarantee from the management, and if the military recruitment center had not taken away his military registration documents and fabricated a false record of refusal to receive a summons, he would have been reserved and granted deferral from mobilization long ago and could have defended Ukraine nonviolently at his place of work without the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, because his work is essential and irreplaceable at this enterprise of the capital’s critical transport infrastructure, and he contributed to emergency repair work after attacks by the Russian army. Now he works only during the day: he cannot work the night shift due to house arrest.

It was previously reported that Adamchuk’s sentence contains a lie that the communists in the previous century usually wrote in sentences of repressed Christians: religious beliefs cannot be a reason for "evading" military service. In his last words in court in 2025, Adamchuk read the poem "Not for Robbery" written by Kyiv pastor Georgi Vins and declamated for the first time in 1966 in his last words at the trial of Christians who were persecuted by the totalitarian regime.

At the session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on 28 March 2025, human rights defenders expressed concern about the prison sentence of Valentyn Adamchuk and demanded his acquittal.

The equality of believers with non-believers in the performance of the duty to protect Ukraine, which believers of pacifist churches perform through peaceful labor, the human right to conscientious objection to military service, and therefore the guarantee of this right, alternative non-military service in time of war, is provided for by Articles 24, 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine, Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Courts must protect these rights to conscientious objection, equality and non-discrimination, freedom of religion and belief. Conscientious objection, which is not a crime, but a human right, shall not be punished.

Sometimes the right to conscientious objection is also called the right to refuse to kill. Let us recall that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ confirmed His heavenly Father’s commandment "Thou shalt not kill!" (Deuteronomy 5:17; Matthew 5:21-22) and, developing it, taught people not to even get angry and to seek reconciliation with enemies. It would be good if the Kremlin dictator Putin would follow the instructions of Jesus Christ and stop killing Ukrainians and accept the internationally approved Ukrainian peace formula of President Zelensky, instead of letting his loyal patriarch-antichrist to bless mass murder.