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A minister for a Church of Christ in Alabama had discussions with the former U.S. senator now embattled attorney general about the plight of Ukraine's war-torn east.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions (UNITED STATES CONGRESS) The minister, Jeff Abrams, doesnt believe that the Republican lawmaker now U.S. Attorney General had improper dealings with a Russian official on behalf of Donald Trumps presidential campaign.

Never, never, never. Thats not him, Abrams, who preaches for the Tuscumbia Church of Christ in northern Alabama, said of Sessions in an interview with The Christian Chronicle.

Sessions recently recused himself from an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The reason: two meetings Sessions had last year with a Russian ambassador meetings Sessions didnt disclose during his confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

One of those meetings included a discussion of Ukraine at which point the conversation got a little testy, Sessions said during a recent news conference.

Jeff Abrams surveys the war-ravaged region in the eastern Ukrainian town of Adiivka in 2016. (PHOTO PROVIDED)

In recent years, Abrams has spoken with Sessions and his staff about eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian separatists broke away from the country after the ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.

Dozens of Churches of Christ met in the region before the conflict. Church members have seen their buildings seized by separatists, some of whom claim that the Russian Orthodox church is the regions only legitimate faith.

Ukrainians accuse Russia of supporting the separatists. Russian officials deny that claim.

Heroes, Satan and Ukraine:Church elder in Donetsk ministers to separatists who seized his congregation's building

During his Senate years, Sessions was instrumental in helping Abrams meet with officials at the U.S. embassy in Ukraines capital, Kiev, in 2015, the minister said. The meeting, he added, seemed to have little effect on the conflict or the U.S. response to it.

Now, as Democrats call for Sessions to resign, the attorney general defends the two meetings he had with the Russian ambassador as part of his duties as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee not as a surrogate for the Trump campaign.

In the following transcript from a news conference, Sessions describes the meeting where Ukraine was discussed:

"And so, we talked a little bit about terrorism as I recall. And somehow the subject of the Ukraine came up. I had had the Ukrainian ambassador in my office the day before. And to listen to him ... Russia had done nothing that was wrong in any area, and everybody else was wrong, with regard to the Ukraine. It got to be a little bit of a testy conversation at that point. It wrapped up. He said something about inviting me to have lunch. I did not accept that, and that never occurred.

They are very tired of the shellings that have become quite frequent recently, the Ukrainian preacher wrote. They are morally exhausted and in great need of spiritual support.

A separatist fighter carries a live artillery shell through the former meeting place of the Petrovsky Church of Christ in Donetsk, Ukraine. Militants seized the building in October 2014 and renamed the region the Donetsk Peoples Republic.

Excerpt from:
On Russia, Ukraine and Jeff Sessions - Christian Chronicle