Pope criticises Russia over cruelty but says war ‘perhaps provoked’

Rome: Pope Francis has taken a new series of swipes at Russia for its actions in Ukraine, while also saying the situation was not black and white and the war was “perhaps in some way provoked”.

The comments were part of a conversation he had last month with editors of Jesuit media published on Tuesday.

He said Russia’s troops were brutal, cruel and ferocious and its use of mercenaries, including Chechens and Syrians, in Ukraine, was “monstrous”.

Pope Francis last month.Credit: AP

While condemning “the ferocity, the cruelty of Russian troops, we must not forget the real problems if we want them to be solved,” Francis said, including the armaments industry among the factors that provide incentives for war.

Francis also praised Ukrainians for fighting for survival.

“It is also true that the Russians thought it would all be over in a week. But they miscalculated. They encountered a brave people, a people who are struggling to survive and who have a history of struggle,” he said.

Francis said that several months before President Vladimir Putin sent his forces into Ukraine, the pontiff had met with a head of state who expressed concern that NATO was “barking at the gates of Russia” in a way that could lead to war.

Francis then said in his own words: “We do not see the whole drama unfolding behind this war, which was perhaps somehow either provoked or not prevented”.

Asking himself rhetorically if that made him “pro-Putin”, he said “No, I am not. It would be simplistic and wrong to say such a thing”.

In comments published by the daily La Stampa, he answered: “I am simply opposed to reducing complexity to distinction between good and bad”.

He hoped to meet Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church in September in Kazakhstan, he said.

On June 5, in an address in Rome, Francis called the war “the negation of God’s dream”.

The day before, at a Q&A session in the Vatican, a Ukrainian boy named Sachar asked him: “Can you come to Ukraine to save all the children who are suffering there now?”

The 85-year-old, who has been using a wheelchair because of knee pain, said wanted to visit the country but had to choose the right time.

“It is not easy to make a decision that could do more harm than good to the rest of the world. I have to find the right moment to do it,” he said, according to a Vatican transcript.

Reuters