Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican on Wednesday criticized Pope Francis, who referred to Daria Dugina, the daughter of a distinguished Russian ultra-nationalist who was killed by a automobile bomb close to Moscow, as an harmless sufferer of the conflict.
It is extremely uncommon for Vatican ambassadors to publicly criticize the Pope.
“The innocent pay for the war,” Francis mentioned earlier in his Wednesday normal viewers in a sentence the place he referred to “that poor girl thrown into the air by a bomb under a car seat in Moscow.”
Russia accused Ukrainian brokers of the homicide, a cost Kyiv denies.
Daria’s father, Alexander Dugin, has lengthy advocated the combination of Russian-speaking and different areas into a brand new Russian Empire that would come with Ukraine.
Daria Dugina broadly supported her father’s views and appeared on state TV in her personal proper to voice help for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
In a tweet, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See Andrey Yurash mentioned the pope’s phrases have been “disappointing”.
“How is it possible to mention one of the ideologues of (Russian) imperialism as an innocent victim? He was killed by the Russians,” he mentioned.
Francis known as the conflict “madness”. He mentioned Ukrainian and Russian youngsters had been killed and “being an orphan knows no nationality”.
In his tweet, Yurash mentioned: “Cannot speak about the aggressor and victim, rapist and rape in the same category”.
The Vatican didn’t instantly reply to Yurash’s feedback.
In one other a part of his tackle, Pope Francis known as for “concrete steps” to finish the conflict in Ukraine and avert the danger of a nuclear catastrophe on the Zaporizhzhya energy plant.
Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused one another of firing on the facility, which is the most important of its sort in Europe and was occupied by pro-Moscow forces shortly after the February 24 invasion. The United Nations has known as for demilitarization of the area.
Francis spoke on the day Ukraine marked its independence from Soviet rule in 1991 and 6 months after the Russian army invasion.
In an interview with Reuters final month, Francis mentioned he want to go to Kyiv however first go to Moscow to advertise peace.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
