Ukraine rejects Pope’s appeal for negotiations with Russia

“The church should be among the people,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address on Sunday.

“And not two and a half thousand kilometres away, somewhere, to mediate virtually between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”

Zelensky added, “When Russian evil started this war” on February 24, 2022, “all Ukrainians stood up to defend themselves. Christians, Muslims, Jews – everyone.”

He thanked every Ukrainian cleric who is working with the defence forces. These clergy are on the front line, protecting life and humanity, he said, adding they support soldiers with prayers, conversations and deeds.

“That is what the church is – with the people.”

The pontiff had triggered an outcry with an appeal for peace negotiations with Russia, which has been understood in Ukraine and many of its supporters as a one-sided appeal to Kiev alone – by some even as a call for capitulation.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has also said Pope Francis was wrong to suggest that Kiev should restart negotiations with Moscow.

“When it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican’s strategy from the first half of the twentieth century,” Kuleba wrote on X (formerly Twitter), apparently referring to the policy of neutrality pursued by Pope Pius XII during World War II.

Kuleba urged the Vatican to “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people.”

“Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” the minister added.