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Volodymyr Zelensky: The Ukrainian President sharply rejected the Pope's appeal

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Ukraine Presidency / Ukrainian Pre / ZUMA Wire / IMAGO

With an interview made public at the weekend, Pope Francis caused an uproar in many places.

He calls on Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war with Russia.

After strong criticism from Germany and Poland, Ukrainian politicians have now also commented on the Pope's statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj sharply rejected the appeal: The church is with the people, said Zelenskyj on Sunday in his evening video address.

"And not two and a half thousand kilometers away, somewhere, to virtually mediate between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you."

“Our flag is yellow and blue,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also wrote on Platform X on Sunday, referring to the colors of the national flag.

»This is the flag under which we live, die and win.

We will never fly another flag.”

The Pope's widely criticized statement comes from an interview with the Swiss broadcaster RSI that was conducted in February but only became known on Saturday.

In it, the Pope suggests that Ukraine should negotiate an end to the war with Russia: He thinks "that the strongest is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people, has the courage of the white flag and negotiates." He also said: »When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate.«

Francis was asked whether he was more in line with those who called for Ukraine to give up because it had not been able to strike back at Russia - or with those who said that giving up would legitimize the actions of the strongest side.

The interviewer used the term “white flag”.

According to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni, the Pope took up the concept of the interviewer.

Francis was widely criticized for his statement, for example by FDP defense politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann and by Archbishop Sviatoslaw Shevtschuk, head of the Ukrainian Eastern Rite Catholic Church with five million believers.

"How would it be if we, as a compensation, encouraged Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine," asked Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.

And Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics wrote on

spr/dpa/Reuters