Ukraine and allies attack Pope’s ‘white’ flag’ comment as call for surrender
Ukrainian and allied officials have criticised Pope Francis for saying Kyiv should have the “courage” to negotiate an end to the war with Russia, a statement many interpreted as a call on Ukraine to surrender.
The foreign minister of Poland, a vocal ally of Kyiv, and Ukraine's ambassador to the Vatican, both used Second World War analogies to condemn the Pope’s remarks, while a leader of one of Ukraine’s Christian churches said that only the country's determined resistance to Russia's aggression had prevented a mass slaughter of civilians.
In an interview recorded last month with Swiss broadcaster RSI and partially released on Saturday, Francis used the phrase “the courage of the white flag” as he argued that Ukraine, facing a possible defeat, should be open to peace talks brokered by international powers.
“How about, for balance, encouraging [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations,” Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski responded with a post on X.
In a separate post, Mr Sikorski drew parallels between those calling for negotiations while “denying [Ukraine] the means to defend itself” and European leaders’ “appeasement” of Adolf Hitler just before the Second World War.
Andrii Yurash, Ukraine's ambassador to the Holy See, said it is “necessary to learn lessons” from that conflict. His post on X appeared to compare the Pope’s comments to calls for “talking with Hitler” while raising “a white flag to satisfy him”.
A Vatican spokesman later clarified that the Pope supported “a stop to hostilities [and] a truce achieved with the courage of negotiations”, rather than an outright Ukrainian surrender.
Matteo Bruni said the journalist interviewing Francis used the term “white flag” in the question that prompted the controversial remarks.
“I think that the strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people and has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates,” Francis said, when asked to weigh in on the debate between those who say Ukraine should agree to peace talks and those who argue that any negotiations would legitimise Moscow’s aggression.
Kyiv remains firm on not engaging directly with Russia on peace talks, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said multiple times that the initiative in peace negotiations must come from the country that has been invaded. Throughout the war, Francis has tried to maintain the Vatican’s traditional diplomatic neutrality, but that has often been accompanied by apparent sympathy with the Russian rationale for invading Ukraine, such as when he noted that Nato was “barking at Russia’s door” with its eastward expansion.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said yesterday that surrender is not on the minds of Ukrainians. “Ukraine is wounded, but unconquered! Ukraine is exhausted, but it stands and will endure," he said while meeting Ukrainians in New York City.