Ukraine forcibly rejects Pope call to ‘surrender’

Ukraine has strongly rejected a call by the Pope to ‘raise the white flag’ in its fight against the invading Russians.

Ukraine has strongly rejected a call by the Pope to “raise the white flag” in its fight against the invading Russians and urged him to “stand on the side of good” against Moscow.

“Our flag is a yellow and blue one,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.

“This is the flag by which we live, die and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.”

There was anger in Kyiv at the weekend when Francis said Ukraine should “have the courage to raise the white flag”.

The Pope, 87, urged both sides to negotiate before things got worse. “I believe that the strongest are those who see the situation, think about the people and have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate,” he told Swiss television in an interview conducted in early February and shown in part on Saturday.

Mr Kuleba said: “The strongest is the one who, in the battle ­between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than ­attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations’.”

He hinted at the Holy See’s neutrality during World War II, calling on the Vatican to “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba: ‘This is the flag by which we live, die and prevail.’ Picture: AFP

Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun said: “There is no point in negotiating with Russia, they never keep what they promise. Surrender means leaving our people in the occupied territories in torture camps, leaving children for brainwashing and facing a new war in 10 years when Russia will recover.”

Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics tweeted: “One must not ­capitulate in face of evil; one must fight and defeat it so that evil raises the white flag and capitulates.”

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said Russia should not be invited to the first meeting of a peace conference ­envisaged in Switzerland in the coming months, although a Russian representative could attend after a road-map for peace had been established.

“We don’t see how you can invite people who block, destroy and kill everything,” he said.

The Pope’s comments came as CNN cited two senior US administration officials as saying that in late 2022, Washington began “preparing rigorously” for Russia ­potentially striking Ukraine with a tactical nuclear weapon.

The US National Security Council had planned how to pre-empt, deter or respond to such a strike, they said.

In his interview, the Pope commented on war in general, including the conflict between Hamas and Israel, saying: “Negotiations are never a surrender. It is the courage not to carry a country to suicide. That word negotiate is a brave word. When you see that you are defeated, that things are not working out, to have the courage to negotiate.

“Today, for example with the war in Ukraine, there are many who want to act as mediators. Turkey for example. Don’t be ashamed to negotiate before things get worse.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered on Friday to host a peace summit.

On Saturday the Vatican clarified that the Pope had been calling for a truce, not for Ukraine to ­capitulate.

“The Pope uses the term white flag, and responds by picking up the image proposed by the interviewer, to indicate a cessation of hostilities, a truce reached with the courage of negotiation,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

In August 2022, the Vatican said Francis viewed “the Russian aggression” as “morally unjust, unacceptable, barbaric, senseless, ­repugnant and sacrilegious”.

Later that month, though, the Pope urged a group of Russian youths to be proud of their country as “great Mother Russia” that displayed “so much culture, so much humanity”.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said at the time that those comments reinforced “notions of being a great power, which contribute, in essence, to Russia’s chronic ­aggressiveness”.

The Times