Witnesses of a Captive West: Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk

The string of recent killings, from Annunciation Church to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, are not unrelated.

n August 22, 2025, Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian, was murdered on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, after finishing a shift at a local pizzeria. She had fled her homeland in the hope of a brighter future in a supposedly safer country. A chilling surveillance video captures the moment she was stabbed from behind—three savage thrusts to her neck as she quietly scrolled her phone—before she collapsed in shock and bled out on the train floor. No one stepped forward to help until it was much too late. Within minutes, the attacker, Decarlos Brown Jr., exited the train, walking away with a bloody knife.

Brown, a career criminal with 14 prior arrests, including armed robbery and domestic violence, was a clear danger. He suffered from paranoid delusions about “foreign materials” in his brain and called 911 repeatedly in psychotic distress. Yet, in January, Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes released him on nothing more than a written promise to appear. He was released without bail, with no confinement, and no treatment. That decision sealed Iryna’s fate.

Her murder was horrific in itself, but the greater scandal is that mainstream America barely noticed. The silence was deafening. By contrast, her workplace, Zeppedies Pizzeria, responded with dignity: keeping her memory alive with a lit candle, a quiet symbol of her warmth and kindness. In a society that has largely abandoned truth, it was ordinary people, not elites, who bore witness to her worth.

And now, as I was working on this piece about Iryna, news broke of Charlie Kirk’s death. I began following the developments in shock, and I could not help but widen this reflection into a global theme—two tragic losses bound together: the slaughter of a young Ukrainian refugee who came seeking peace; and the assassination of a Christian conservative voice and defender of free speech in America, a husband and father now torn from his family.

A video posted on 𝕏 shows the shooting occurring moments after Kirk had been asked a question from the audience: “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters in the past ten years?” to which he replied, “Too many.” The questioner pressed, “Five. Now five is a lot; I’ll give you credit. Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last ten years?” Kirk responded, “Counting or not counting gang violence?” And then—in a grim twist of fate, he was shot viciously in the neck. The irony is inescapable. Only days earlier, I had written on the disturbing links between transgender ideology, violence, and murder in an article titled “Gender Ideology and Violence: Cultural Confusion and the Spiritual Battle.” Kirk’s death, unfolding in that very context, makes the point in blood.

These are not isolated sorrows but twin revelations of a world increasingly gripped by darkness.

Silence and Selective Empathy

Consider the hypocrisy. When George Floyd died in 2020, the world was engulfed in turmoil; he had a long criminal record, resisted arrest, and succumbed to drug toxicity. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and other Democratic leaders knelt in kente stoles for eight minutes and 46 seconds in what looked like a disturbing ritual broadcast live across the nation (the same people, some of whom identify as Catholic, wouldn’t kneel eight seconds for Christ). 

Unsurprisingly, in his predictable display of hollow, sycophantic, social-justice-supporting behavior, Justin Trudeau knelt near Parliament in Ottawa, masked during Covid, while ordinary Canadians were fined for walking their dogs or letting their children play basketball. At the very same time, destructive and violent groups like Antifa and BLM were given free rein to riot in the streets, shielded by political approval. The irony and double standard are inescapable.

Now consider Iryna: a refugee who fled bombs for safety, stabbed to death in public while passengers filmed her collapse. No hashtags. No vigils. There was no unending coverage. There was just pure, deafening silence. That is not compassion; it is political idolatry. Even Wikipedia became a battleground, with editors trying to delete her page for “lack of notability,” removing the killer’s name and race, and debating whether to call it a “murder” at all—an attempt to sanitize her death into oblivion.

One impassioned voice, an acquaintance of mine on Facebook, a black Christian commentator who clearly recognizes the dignity of every human life, unlike our political class, put it plainly: 

If a Black woman had been stabbed by a white man, and the bystanders had all been white, it would be headline news everywhere. But because it happened the other way, the coverage is quieter. Regardless of race—how could a metro car full of people stand by while a woman bled to death? 

That silence, he argued, “speaks loudly.”

Kirk had already warned of the media’s silence, asking: “Why won’t they say Iryna Zarutska’s name?” Now, in a tragic irony, his own voice is gone. Though details remain sparse, the reality is clear: a Christian leader and defender of free speech has been struck down. Yet while his body has fallen, the truth he proclaimed cannot be buried. President Donald Trump confirmed the worst: “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead…Charlie, we love you!”

Was he killed for political, cultural, or theological disagreement or perhaps all of the above, carried out by powerful groups with much to lose? Political commentator Roger Stone even suggested the murder bore the hallmarks of a professional hit, possibly by a nation state, rogue elements within the American government, or a terrorist organization. I will leave readers to decide for themselves. Nevertheless, this must be carefully reflected upon.

Although I did not agree with everything Kirk said on every issue, we shared the same Christian faith, many of the same political convictions, and a desire to defend truth against the lies of our age. It is a very sad day for America and for the world when such an incident is the outcome of what is supposed to be a pluralistic society. A man should not be gunned down for his beliefs. And yet this is where we now find ourselves: at a historical crossroads, where those who speak truth are assassinated, where truth itself is punished by blood, and society edges toward the kind of unrest that has so often torn civilizations apart. It is, in a bitter paradox, a turning point in the truest sense of the word, just as Kirk’s own organization, Turning Point USA, signals, as noted in Crisis Magazine’s editor’s take.

The assault on Kirk, like the erasure of Zarutska, reveals both the rising tide of political violence and the refusal of mainstream institutions to confront it honestly.

The Justice System’s Failures

Iryna’s murder was not random. It was predictable, preventable, and facilitated by a system that prioritizes criminals over the innocent. Despite being aware of Brown’s past and instability, Judge Teresa Stokes chose to release him. This is not mercy; it is negligence masquerading as compassion. Progressive governance clings to a false compassion that coddles predators and abandons victims, and it is deadly.

The same sickness fuels political violence. When truth is silenced, justice twisted, and criminals exalted while truth-tellers are condemned, violence soon follows. 

Bystander Indifference: The Greater Illness

The footage of passengers sitting, fleeing, and filming as a woman lay dying reveals not only cowardice but also complicity. We have become spectators of evil and voyeurs of suffering. A culture that records atrocity rather than resists it has already surrendered its soul. Indifference is not neutral; it is complicity. Christ Himself warned, “Whoever is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30). The same demonic passivity is at work when leaders kneel for criminals but not for Christ, when mobs are excused while victims are erased, and when assassination becomes just another headline in the churn of distraction. For civilized and educated nations, brutality and even indifference do not escape us: they condemn us all the more.We have become spectators of evil and voyeurs of suffering. A culture that records atrocity rather than resists it has already surrendered its soul.Tweet This

Canada has witnessed the same decay. In Vancouver, on March 26, 2023, 37-year-old Paul Stanley Schmidt was fatally stabbed in broad daylight as bystanders looked on, some even filming, while his life ebbed away.

Theological Reckoning: When Darkness Rules

These twin tragedies, Zarutska’s slaughter and Kirk’s assassination, are not disconnected. They are symptoms of the same spiritual war. As Christians know all too well, Satan delights not only in lies but also in bloodshed and chaos. He captivates nations by twisting justice, seducing leaders, and numbing hearts. First, an innocent refugee is butchered while elites look away. Then, a Christian conservative voice is silenced by a gunman. And in between, there are countless cases of ordinary people cut down in tragic, senseless ways, their names quickly forgotten by a culture too distracted or too calloused to care. The trajectory is unmistakable: America and the West are under siege not merely politically but spiritually.

Scripture warns that the devil prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). He devours through the knife of a career criminal on a train. He devours through the bullet that struck Charlie Kirk. And he devours through the cowardice of a people who kneel before false gods while refusing to bend the knee to Christ. As Aleksander Solzhenitsyn warned, “The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart.” Satan exploits that line in every heart that refuses the grace of God.

We must continue to speak the truth and resist evil. The following should be crystal clear:

• Judge Teresa Stokes bears responsibility for unleashing Brown on the public.
• Elites who canonize criminals while erasing victims bear responsibility for corrupting our culture.
• Leaders who kneel for George Floyd but not for Christ reveal their allegiances.
• Citizens who film but do not act show how deep our moral sickness runs.

Say their names: Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk; they should be remembered not as footnotes but as innocent lives whose loss exposes the captivity of the West. Their deaths cry out for repentance, justice, and courage.

Regardless of the prevalence of evil, we must be relentless in claiming the truth—the truth that every human life is sacred, that Christ is Lord, and that evil must be resisted.

The hour is very, very late; but hope always endures. For while Satan captivates nations with atrocity after atrocity, Christ alone has conquered death. Only by returning to Him can America, Canada, and the West be freed from this captivity of blood and lies.

I have written about death far more than I ever wished. Over time, I have even called myself a “theological obituarist.” This year especially, I have reflected on many kinds of deaths. And each time, I am reminded—and I remind you—that we must all be prepared when the Lord calls us.

https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/witnesses-of-a-captive-west-iryna-zarutska-and-charlie-kirk