Also, the pontiff stated that he had requested to meet with Putin in order to address the Ukrainian conflict. However, he has yet not been able receive a response.
Pope Francis has said that NATO’s eastward expansion may have provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin into launching an attack against Ukraine.
The pontiff suggested that in an interview with Corriere Della Sera published Tuesday, the pontiff said “the barking of NATO at Russia’s door”Putin could have been compelled to launch the military campaign in February 24,
“I can’t say if it was provoked, but perhaps, yes,”He said.
Francis claimed that he had requested a meeting between Putin and him during the first weeks of conflict. However, he has not yet received any response. He said he had asked the Vatican’s top diplomat to contact the Russian president about setting up a meeting about three weeks into the hostilities.
We are insisting on our request for a reply, but we haven’t yet received one.”The paper was informed by him.I fear Putin will not and cannot agree to this meeting. How can you stop such brutality?He concluded.
According to the pontiff, he spoke for about 40 minutes with Kirill of Moscow (Patriarch of Russian Orthodox Church), via Zoom. The Patriarch, who has made comments justifying Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, “cannot become Putin’s altar boy,” he insisted.
Francis said that Viktor Orban (Hungarian Prime Minister) had told him that Putin was working on a plan for ending the war, which would be May 9, the day Russia commemorates its 1945 Victory Day against Nazi Germany.
It was previously criticized that the pope did not direct crow Russia at the beginning of the attack. His March call for the a “a different way of governing the world”And urged humanity to get over its instinctive desire for “more weapons, more sanctions, more political-military alliances.”
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Russia attacked its neighbor in late February, following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Since then, the Kremlin demanded Ukraine declare itself neutral and vow to never join NATO’s military bloc. Kiev claims that the Russian invasion was unprovoked. It also denies any plans to take the republics with force.
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