Thousands of people have taken part in a United Day of Prayer for Ukraine.

Sunday's event was held in Holhofa Church in the city of Lviv and approximately 3,000 people attended the event in person. Over 20,000 have watched the broadcast online.

It was organised by Vadim Preobrazhenskiy and his team from Eurovision Mission to Europe, in co-operation with Ukraine Pentecostal Church Union and other denominations.

Vadim, who is Eurovision Mission’s Official Representative in Kyiv has been speaking to Premier about the event:

“To reinforce our faith as Christians, we organised a united prayer for Ukraine. This in itself was a small victory for Ukraine because despite the war, our militaries succeeded in guaranteeing safety to all the participants. So it was held not online, but in person.

“People got together and in safety, with good air defence, but they still had the chance to unite our prayers, to serve to demonstrate that we are faithful, and whatever is prepared in the future, we will accept it with dignity and honour.

“But we still encourage the world to support Ukraine, because the next year is going to be, we all believe, victorious here. We know that total victory is possible only as an answer of the Lord, so we call for the Lord to intervene.

“We're asking God to protect our defenders, who with immense bravery, every day try to restore our sovereignty and territorial integrity. Of course we ask the Lord to intervene himself because we know He's almighty and all our hopes are in his hands.”

It's almost two years since Russia invaded Ukraine – but over the last few days there have been setbacks for President Zelenskiy after he failed to secure extra funding from the EU and the US.

Ukraine’s military also says it needs to mobilise an extra 500,000 troops for its counter-offensive against Russia.