Pope’s ‘white flag’ gaffe triggers outrage in Ukraine

KYIV — Pope Francis strikes again.

Asked during an interview what he thinks about calls for Ukraine to surrender to Russia, Francis said he believes “those who have the courage to raise the white flag and to negotiate are stronger.”

The pope told the Italian-language Swiss public broadcaster RSI: “When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you need to have the courage to negotiate. You are ashamed, but with how many deaths will it end? Negotiate in time, and look for some country to act as a mediator.  Don’t be ashamed to negotiate before things get worse. Negotiation is never a surrender. It is the courage not to lead the country to suicide.”

The comments, which spread like wildfire on Russian state media and which the Vatican was eventually forced to row back on, sparked outrage in Kyiv and beyond, with officials viewing it as a call for Ukraine to surrender to Russia.

Thanking Ukrainian chaplains working on the front lines, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a pointed late-evening statement Sunday: “This is what the church is — it is together with people, not two and a half thousand kilometers away somewhere, virtually mediating between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy.”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who has strongly backed Ukraine as it faces down Russia’s invading forces, told a talk show on ARD Sunday evening that she “didn’t understand” the pope’s comments, and suggested he needed to visit Ukraine to see the damage being wrought by Moscow.

“I think you can only understand some things if you see them yourself,” the Green politician said, adding that when she talks to children in Ukraine who are affected by the war, she asks herself: “Where is the pope?”

Kyiv is seeking the return of all the territory Russian forces have illegally annexed and invaded since 2014, and financial restitution. The Kremlin, meanwhile, is refusing to broach the subject of returning the four Ukrainian regions it partly controls, and is insisting that Ukraine must disarm, turn away from the European Union and NATO and return to life within Russia’s much-lauded sphere of influence. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied the Zelenskyy government’s legitimacy and questioned the existence of a Ukrainian identity and the nation’s very existence.

Referring to the pope’s “white flag” comment, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement: “Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.” He also thanked the pope for his constant prayers for peace.

Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church, meanwhile, said in its own statement: “Ukrainians cannot surrender because surrender means death. The intentions of Putin and Russia are clear and explicit. In Putin’s mind, there is no such thing as Ukraine, Ukrainian history, language, and independent Ukrainian church life.”

It isn’t the first time Pope Francis has gotten into hot water over his statements about Russia and Ukraine.

In August, the pontiff angered Kyiv and its Baltic allies by praising Russia’s imperialist past during a videoconference with Russian Catholic youth, whom he called the “heirs of Great Russia.” The Vatican was then also forced to issue a clarification, saying Francis had not intended to encourage modern Russian aggression. Regardless, heaping praise on Peter I and Catherine II, who were responsible for destroying Ukrainian and Polish national movements, went down badly in countries that suffered under the grip of the Russian empire.

“Pope Francis should take a realistic look at the world and have the courage to negotiate with Lucifer the surrender of the Catholic Church,” Andreas Umland, a political analyst with the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, mocked in a Facebook post.