Pope blasts Russia’s ‘infantile’ war, weighs Kyiv visit

VALLETTA, Malta — Pope Francis said Saturday he is studying a possible visit to Kyiv and he blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching a “savage” war. Speaking after his arrival in Malta, he delivered his most pointed and personalized denunciation yet of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Francis didn’t cite Russian President Vladimir Putin by name, but the reference was clear when he said that “some potentate” had unleashed the threat of nuclear war on the world in an “infantile and destructive aggression” under the guise of “anachronist claims of nationalistic interests.”

“We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past,” Francis told Maltese officials and diplomats on the Mediterranean island nation at the start of a weekend visit.

Francis has to date avoided referring to Russia or Putin by name. But Saturday’s personalization of the powerful figure responsible marked a new level of outrage for the pope.

“Once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interest, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, whereas ordinary people sense the need to build a future that will either be shared or not be at all,” he said.

The Vatican tends to not call out aggressors in hopes of keeping open options for dialogue. The Vatican, which in recent years has forged unprecedented new relations with the Putinallied

Russian Orthodox Church, had offered itself as a potential mediator but to date has been largely left on the diplomatic sidelines.

Francis told reporters en route to Malta that a possible visit to Kyiv was “on the table,” but no dates have been set. The mayor of the Ukrainian capital had invited Francis to come as a messenger of peace along with other religious figures.

The visit to Malta, originally scheduled for May 2020, was always supposed to focus on migration, given Malta’s role at the heart of Europe’s migration debate.

Speaking with Malta’s president by his side, Francis denounced the “sordid agreements” the European Union has made with Libya to turn back migrants and said Europe must show humanity in welcoming them. He called for the Mediterranean to be a “theater of solidarity, not the harbinger of a tragic shipwreck of civilization.”