In the interview, the Pope revealed that he asked Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin “Twenty days into the war, let me get the message to Putin that I am willing to go to Moscow. It was necessary for the Russian leader to grant some window.”
“So far we have not had answers and we are insisting”remarked and considered that “Putin cannot and does not want to hold this meeting at this time.”
“Even I am just a priest. What can I do? I do what I can. If Putin opened the door…”he hoped.
Taking a tour of the actions undertaken by the Holy See since February 24, Francis said that he called the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, “on the first day of the war” and that he then wanted to “make a clear gesture so that the whole world” with his visit that day to the Russian embassy to the Vatican.
When analyzing the possible causes of the conflict, Jorge Bergoglio stated that “NATO’s barking at the doors of Russia” led Putin to the conflict, referring to the supposed expansion of the North Atlantic Organization, with a pro-American profile, towards countries bordering Russia.
Putin’s, for the Pope, “is an anger that I don’t know if it was provoked, but perhaps it was facilitated.”
At the same time, Francis did not show full support for the delivery of weapons to Ukraine, considering that “what is clear is that weapons are being tested in this war”:
“The Russians now know that tanks are of little use and are thinking about other things. Wars are made for this: to test the weapons we have produced,” he denounced.
In a framework of criticism of warmongering, the Pope also closed the door to any meeting for the moment with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Cyril, an ally of Putin, with whom he had “a meeting already on the agenda for June 14 in Jerusalem.”
“I spoke with him for 40 minutes on Zoom. The first twenty minutes with a piece of paper in his hand, he read me all the justifications for the war. I listened to him and told him that I do not understand anything about that. The Patriarch cannot become Putin’s altar boy” Francis warned.
Looking ahead, Francis said in the interview that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told him two weeks ago, during a private visit, that “the Russians have a plan and that everything will end on May 9”:
“I hope it is like that, that is how the escalation of these days would be understood. Because now it is no longer just Donbass, it is Crimea, it is Odessa, it is taking the Black Sea port from Ukraine. That is all”, criticized the Pope on the last military objectives of the invasion.
“I am pessimistic but we must do everything possible so that the war ends,” he said.
Source: Ambito
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