Ukraine calls out Pope over ‘white flag’ remarks
Leaders in Ukraine have vehemently rejected Pope Francis’s suggestion of negotiations with Russia to bring an end to the war - his use of the words “white flag” drawing particular scorn reiterating that the country would never surrender.
In a recent interview, Francis used the term “white flag,” repeating the words of a journalist, which some read as a call to surrender.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the Pope without naming him in his nightly address.
Praising Ukrainian chaplains on the front line, Zelenskyy said: “This is what the church is - it is together with people, not two and a half thousand kilometres away somewhere, virtually mediating between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the Vatican to support the Ukrainian people “in their just struggle for their lives,” writing: “Our flag is blue and yellow. Under it, we live, die, and triumph. We will not raise any other flags.” He thanked Francis for his prayers for peace and urged him to visit Ukraine.
The Pope’s remarks were made in an interview with Swiss broadcaster Radio Télévision Suisse, recorded in February, part of which was released on Saturday. The full interview will air on March 20.
According to a transcript translated and shared by the Vatican news agency, interviewer Lorenzo Buccella asked Francis: “In Ukraine, some call for the courage of surrender, of the white flag. But others say that this would legitimise the stronger party. What do you think?”
Francis responded by saying that, in his opinion, the stronger side is the one “who has the courage of the white flag, to negotiate.”
The controversy prompted a clarification from the Vatican.
“The Pope uses the term white flag, and responds by picking up the image proposed by the interviewer, to indicate a cessation of hostilities, a truce reached with the courage of negotiation,” spokesman Matteo Bruni said, adding that the Pope stated that negotiations are never a “surrender.”
Though he has often condemned the war in Ukraine, Francis has provoked debate within the church over whether his messaging on the conflict has been too cautious.
Ukrainian church leaders and Ukraine’s allies, too, pushed back against the Pope’s latest remarks.
Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church, told a prayer gathering in New York that no one in Ukraine “even thinks of surrendering”.
“How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine?” Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski wrote on X.
Russian officials have made it clear that the Kremlin’s terms for peace - unchanged since Moscow’s 2022 invasion - include retaining Crimea and four other regions that it illegally claimed to annex in 2022, as well as Ukraine’s “demilitarisation,” a demand that would leave Ukraine with a neutral status and no army to defend itself.