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World News


FURIOUS CRITICS COMPARE POPE’S CALL FOR UKRAINE TO WAVE ‘WHITE FLAG’ TO NAZI
APPEASEMENT

By Steve Janoski

Published March 10, 2024, 4:35 p.m. ET

Pope Francis’ statement that Ukraine should have the “courage of the white flag”
in order to negotiate an end to the war with Russia has ignited a storm of
criticism by Ukrainian and allied officials — some of whom invoked the specter
of World War II appeasement of Nazi Germany.

A Vatican spokesman quickly walked back the statement Saturday, saying Francis
supported “a stop to hostilities (and) a truce achieved with the courage of
negotiations,” rather than a Ukrainian surrender, which many took it to mean.

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7
Pope Francis has drawn the ire of the international community after comments
that seemed to imply Ukraine should wave the white flag and negotiate with
Russia. Getty Images
7
Ukrainian and Polish diplomats hit back, referencing the Church’s inaction
during World War II and saying the pontiff should not repeat historical
mistakes. AP

But Ukrainian and Polish officials pilloried the remarks, which the pope made in
an interview with Swiss broadcaster RSI that was recorded last month and
partially released Saturday.

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“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,’” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a Sunday
post on X.

“At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican’s
strategy from the first half of the 20th century,” Kuleba said, in an apparent
reference to the church’s failure to take action against Hitler’s Germany in the
runup to World War II.

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“I urge [the Church] to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support
Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives,” he continued.

“Our flag is blue and yellow. We live, die and win under it. We will not raise
other flags.”

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski joined in, saying in a post on X that,
“for balance,” the pope should encourage Putin “to have the courage to withdraw
his army from Ukraine.”

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“Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations,” Sikorski
said.

“Let’s be clear on this: when a commentator or a politician calls for ‘peace’
and simultaneously advocates denying the victim of aggression the means to
defend herself, they actually mean that the victim should capitulate,” Sikorski
said in another post. “Such Chamberlainism usually covers baser motives.”

In the powder keg interview, the pope was asked his opinion on the debate
between people who say Ukraine should agree to peace talks and those who say
negotiations legitimizes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

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“I think that the strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks
about the people and has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates,” Francis
replied, echoing the interviewer’s use of the loaded term “white flag.”

Ukraine has remained steadfast in its refusal to hold peace talks with Russia
since the neighboring nation invaded without provocation more than two years
ago.

7
In response, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Ukraine would “live,
die and win” under its own flag. AP

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7
Svyatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said surrender
“never crosses anyone’s mind.” AP
7
Ukrainian soldiers’ defense of home and hearth is the only thing that avoided
catastrophe, Shevchuk added. AP

Although the pope has appeared to maintain the Vatican’s diplomatic neutrality,
he has also shown what seems to be sympathy for Russian propaganda that claimed
NATO was “barking at Russia’s door” as it slowly expanded east.

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“Negotiations are never a surrender,” Francis insisted in the interview. “When
you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have
the courage to negotiate.”

But the pope has also expressed support for the embattled nation, which he has
come to call “martyred Ukraine,” according to the New York Times.

Meanwhile, the leader of Ukraine’s Green Catholic Church said the nation’s
fierce resistance to an attack that many thought would flatten the country
within weeks is the only thing that prevented a mass slaughter of civilians.

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7
Russian troops have been accused of committing a litany of war crimes during the
invasion, including murdering civilians. Donetsk Region Prosecutor`s Office/AFP
via Getty Images

“Ukraine is exhausted, but it stands and will endure,” Archbishop Sviatoslav
Shevchuk said during a Sunday meeting with his countrymen in New York City.

“Believe me, it never crosses anyone’s mind to surrender.”

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Shevchuk also said that gruesome Russian massacres — such as that in Bucha, a
town near Kyiv, where Russians littered the streets with the corpses of hundreds
of murdered Ukrainian civilians — would have been “just an introduction” if not
for Ukrainian soldiers’ defense of home and hearth.

7
Russian President Vladimir Putin sits in a cockpit of a flight simulator at the
Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots in March 2024. AP

Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, also invited the pope to Ukraine — which
he said would show support for the “more than a million Ukrainian (Roman)
Catholics, more than five million Greek Catholics, all Christians and all
Ukrainians.”

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During the Angelus prayer on Sunday, Francis said he was praying “for peace in
the tormented Ukraine and in the Holy Land.”

“Let the hostilities which cause immense suffering among the civilian population
cease as soon as possible,” he said.

With Post wires


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Filed under negotiations ,  poland ,  pope francis ,  ukraine ,  ukraine war , 
vatican ,  war ,  3/10/24

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