Fall River Ukrainian Priest: ‘We Need to Kill’ Putin

"As a priest, it's a sin to say like that, 'We need to kill him.' But we need to kill him," Father Mykhaylo Dosyak said of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

"Because if we will not do that, he will kill all of humanity. Because he's even worse [than] Hitler."

Dosyak, a Ukrainian Catholic priest at a parish in Fall River and Woonsocket, RI, is from Ukraine, which for the past week has been holding out against invading Russian forces.

More than a million Ukrainians have been displaced and thousands have died as cities and civilians continue to be bombarded by Russian missiles.

The Feb. 24 attack shocked the entire world, and has already sparked a war crimes investigation from the International Court of Justice.

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Dosyak has been living and working in the U.S. for four years now, but he said his whole family is in Ukraine — although he would not say where out of fear for their safety.

"It's heartbreaking. It's so painful," he said. "It's very very hard to live through. And every day I call them."

"We ask God to take away that crazy Putin from Ukraine, and all his devil armies," Dosyak said, adding that he doesn't know if he will ever see his mother, sister, or brother-in-law alive again.

Putin's forces are shelling apartment buildings, hospitals, and kindergartens in Ukraine indiscriminately, he said. "Civilians, kids, elderly people, moms."

He said Putin expected to win within 24 hours, but the Ukrainian people stopped him. "I feel very proud of my Ukrainian state, of my Ukrainian people," he said.

If the U.S. and other NATO and European allies help fight Putin there, Dosyak opined, "we will destroy him."

Dosyak likened the Russian leader to an angry, wounded beast. "In that moment, the beast is very dangerous. Not just for Ukraine, but for the whole world," he said.

He knows that calling for someone to die is not normally acceptable for people in his position.

"I am sorry to say it like that. It's a sin, and I understand what I'm saying," he said. "But it is how it is. Because he is [a] very dangerous man."