Kyiv slams Pope’s ‘white flag’ call

KYIV: Ukraine on Sunday angrily rejected Pope Francis’ call to negotiate with Russia two years into its invasion, vowing “never” to surrender after the pontiff said Kyiv should “have the courage to raise the white flag.”

The row over his comments came as officials in Ukraine said Russian shelling in the east had killed three people on Sunday. A strike on a residential building in the eastern town of Myrnograd wounded a dozen more people, said Kyiv.

Ukraine also said Moscow launched missile attacks on the northeastern Kharkiv region and sent attack drones across the country’s center and south.

The Pope’s comments this weekend fueled anger in Kyiv this weekend after he said in an interview that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia, which has seized large swathes of its territory since the invasion began.

“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,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

He was responding to the 87-year-old’s interview to Swiss broadcaster RTS in which the Catholic leader raised the prospect of surrender.

“I believe that the strongest are those who see the situation, think about the people and have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate,” Francis said in an interview conducted in early February and broadcast on Saturday.

Ukrainian officials compared the statement to some of the Catholic Church collaborating with Nazi Germany during World War 2.

“At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century,” Kuleba said, calling on the Holy See to “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.”

Ukrainian Ambassador to the Vatican Andrii Yurash went further, comparing the Pope’s negotiation suggestion to talking to Adolf Hitler.

“[The] lesson is only one: if we want to finish [the] war, we have to do everything to kill [the] Dragon! “he said on social media.

After the interview aired, Francis offered fresh prayers for “martyred Ukraine,” as Vatican officials said his call was simply intended to end fierce fighting.

But in his nightly address on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed Ukraine’s criticism.

Ukrainians of all faiths stood up to defend their country when Russia invaded, he said.

“Christians, Muslims, Jews — everyone ... They support us with prayer, conversation, and deeds,” the president said.

“This is what the church is — with people. And not 2,500 kilometers away, somewhere to mediate virtually between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you,” he added.

Some Western diplomats also joined the criticism.

“Russia is the aggressor and breaks international law! Therefore, Germany asks Moscow to stop the war, not Kyiv!” said Bernhard Kotsch, Germany’s envoy to the Vatican.

Kuleba said Kyiv hoped Francis would visit his war-torn country after more than two years of battling its bigger neighbor.

In Ukraine itself, officials reported the latest deaths.

“Three people died as a result of today’s shelling in the Donetsk region,” Vadym Filashkin, head of the embattled region, said on social media.

He said rescuers pulled out two bodies “from under the rubble of a house” in the town of Dobropillya, which he said Russia attacked with Iranian-made Shahed drones at night.