Zelensky is rallying his European allies this weekend ahead of a planned counteroffensive on the battlefield.
Recently, the pope appeared to cast himself in the role of peacemaker. He told reporters in late April that there was “a mission going on now” to reach a peace deal, “but it is not public yet,” adding, “when it is public I will talk about it.”
The remarks appeared to take Moscow and Kyiv by surprise, with both governments denying they knew about the effort. Some analysts question whether there is a viable mediator role for the Vatican in a part of the world dominated by the Russian Orthodox Church.And although the pope has sharpened his rhetoric during the course of the war, Ukrainians have at times accused Francis of creating false equivalencies.in the first months after the invasion for not calling out Putin as the aggressor, while criticizing Western sanctions and defense spending.
Francis adopted a harder line in more recent months. In October, he appealed to Putin to “stop this spiral of violence and death.” In November, he compared the plight of Ukrainians with the “genocide artificially caused by Stalin” in the 1930s, when a Soviet-engineered famine in Ukraine contributed to the death of more than 3 million people. Francis called for prayers for Ukrainian civilians “who today are suffering the martyrdom of aggression.
But during the war in Ukraine, the Russian Orthodox leader has promoted theological justifications for Putin’s actions.
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