(RepublicanNews.org) – Pope Francis has angered Ukraine’s leadership as well as many of its supporters by suggesting that when faced with defeat, it is best to have the “courage to negotiate.”
Replying to an interviewer who asked him about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, the Pope said that ending military efforts and negotiating with Russia would take strength and was, in fact, more courageous than “leading the country to suicide.” U.S. officials estimated that Ukraine had suffered approximately 70,000 deaths since the outbreak of hostilities. However, this number is difficult to confirm with both Ukraine and Russia keeping their tallies of casualties largely under wraps.
The Pope’s suggestion was met with ire in Kyiv, with Ukrainian officials calling a meeting the Vatican’s envoy to express their disappointment in the head of the Catholic church’s viewpoints. Following Pope Francis’ reference to the benefits of raising a “white flag,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba asserted that his country would never raise the white flag but would continue to fight under the Ukrainian blue and yellow standard.
In the face of papal doubt, President Zelensky has claimed that his nation’s position was becoming more stable on the battlefield despite limitations to foreign aid received by the war-torn country as the invasion begins its third year. Kyiv’s stance continues to be that Ukraine will accept nothing less than the return of all land annexed by Russia since 2014.
Moscow, meanwhile, says that it will not relinquish any such land, and demands Ukrainian disarmament and for it to turn its back on the European Union and NATO, and instead return to Russian influence. Russian President Vladimir Putin does not recognize Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent country. He has expressed his view that the Ukrainian people and Russian people are not separate but are one people under a shared Russian history.
The Vatican has since said that the Pope’s comments about a “white flag” referred more generally to a cessation of violence, and not to Ukraine’s outright surrender. The Pope’s comments brought a backlash from other parts of the Catholic Church, with the representatives of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church expressing their disagreement and claiming that for their country to surrender would be a death sentence.
Copyright 2024, RepublicanNews.org
