Ukraine minister, responding to Pope Francis, says Kyiv will never raise white flag
(Reuters) - Ukraine’s foreign minister, responding to Pope Francis’s call to show “the courage of the white flag” and negotiate an end to the war with Russia, said on Sunday that Kyiv would never capitulate and told the Vatican to pay special heed to its role in World War Two.
Francis made the comments in an interview made available in part at the weekend. He responded to a presenter’s suggestion by saying that when things were not going well for a party to a conflict “you have to have the courage to negotiate”.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, writing on social media platform X, said that the strong person in any dispute “stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations’”.
“Our flag is a yellow and blue one,” Kuleba wrote in English, referring to the Ukrainian national flag. “This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.”
Kuleba also pointed to allegations that Pope Pius XII failed to take action against Nazi tyranny in World War Two.
“At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican’s strategy from the first half of the twentieth century,” he wrote.
“I urge (the Vatican) to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.”
That was a reference to longstanding arguments that Pius took no action despite evidence that emerged
during the war of the extent of the Holocaust. A letter made public last year from the Vatican archives appeared to show that Pius was made aware of details of Nazi actions to exterminate Jews as early as 1942.
The head of Ukraine’s five million-strong eastern rite Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, also rejected the pope’s comments.