The comments, which spread like wildfire on Russian state media and which the Vatican was eventually forced to row back on, sparked outrage in Kyiv and beyond, with officials viewing it as a call for Ukraine to surrender to Russia.
Thanking Ukrainian chaplains working on the front lines, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a pointed late-evening statement Sunday: “This is what the church is — it is together with people, not two and a half thousand kilometers away somewhere, virtually mediating between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who has strongly backed Ukraine as it faces down Russia’s invading forces, told a talk show on ARD Sunday evening that she “didn’t understand” the pope’s comments, and suggested he needed to visit Ukraine to see the damage being wrought by Moscow.
“I think you can only understand some things if you see them yourself,” the Green politician said, adding that when she talks to children in Ukraine who are affected by the war, she asks herself: “Where is the pope?”
Kyiv is seeking the return of all the territory Russian forces have illegally annexed and invaded since 2014, and financial restitution. The Kremlin, meanwhile, is refusing to broach the subject of returning the four Ukrainian regions it partly controls, and is insisting that Ukraine must disarm, turn away from the European Union and NATO and return to life within Russia’s much-lauded sphere of influence. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied the Zelenskyy government’s legitimacy and questioned the existence of a Ukrainian identity and the nation’s very existence.
Referring to the pope’s “white flag” comment, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement: “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.” He also thanked the pope for his constant prayers for peace.
