Pope Francis has sparked anger after appearing to suggest Ukraine should be the one to wave ‘the white flag’ and seek a ceasefire to end Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion.
More than two years after Russian troops illegally attacked their neighbour the pontiff said Ukrainian leadership should be the “strongest” and seek to “negotiate”.
The Kremlin have previously welcomed remarks from the Pope, and in light of recent Russian gains on the battlefield President Putin could see these new comments as a blessing for his war.
Ukrainian authorities are yet to respond concerning the religious leader’s thoughts. Western leaders have countered the Catholic leader’s comments, with the President of Latvia, a country that is a NATO member bordering Russia, saying Ukraine should not “capitulate in the face of evil”.
Speaking to the Swiss broadcaster RSI in an interview released yesterday Pope Francis said a leader should not be ashamed to meet at the negotiating table. He said: “I think that the strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people and has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates.”
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics was clearly unimpressed with the Pope’s musing and in a veiled rebuke on X, formerly Twitter, he posted: “My Sunday morning take: One must not capitulate in face of evil, one must fight it and defeat it, so that the evil raises the white flag and capitulates.”
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said the Pope’s words were not welcome and might be seen as encouragement to Vladimir Putin, who has compared himself to the historical Russian conquering leader Peter the Great.
Mr Shevchuk said: “We fear that these words will be understood by some as an encouragement of this nationalism and imperialism which is the real cause of the war in Ukraine.”
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Pope Francis had picked up the “white flag” term that had been used by the interviewer.
Throughout the war, the Pope has tried to maintain the Vatican neutrality, but that has often been accompanied by apparent sympathy with the Russian rationale for invading Ukraine, such as when he noted that NATO was “barking at Russia’s door” with its eastward expansion.
Elsewhere in the Pope’s interview, which has only been partially released, he doubled-down on his assesment of the war in Ukraine, saying: “When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate. Negotiations are never a surrender.”
