President Zelensky’s right-hand man closed the door to Vatican peace mediation and harshly criticized Francis
One cannot deny the tension between Pope Francis and Ukraine for months. But an attack like the one in the last few hours has never been seen before: “There is no mediator role for the Pope, he is pro-Russian and not credible,” said Mikhail Podolyak, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top advisor, on Ukraine’s Channel 24, in a long and controversial conversation with Oksana Kharkovska, where he talked about the war, NATO and, indeed, the Vatican and its role.
In this way, kyiv excluded the possibility of Vatican mediation to resolve the military conflict on Ukrainian territory. Podolyak had no qualms with his words and also spoke of alleged Russian investments in the Vatican bank.
“The Vatican cannot have any mediation role, because it would be a role that would mislead Ukraine or justice,” Podolyak explained, adding that Kiev, in this situation, will not receive a “fair assessment” from the Vatican.
Upset by the Pope’s words to young Russians
Podolyak, who is the right-hand man of the president of Ukraine, again criticized Pope Francis’ words to the Russian youth gathered in Saint Petersburg, in a remote meeting, held on the occasion of World Youth Day, which due to the war Russian Christians could not attend.
At that meeting the Pope had spoken to them about the “Great Russia” because “the Russian heritage is very good and very beautiful and you only have to think in the field of literature, of music until you reach the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, who speaks to us about humanism” was the authentic message of the Pontiff, although he later recognized that perhaps “it was not very lucky” since it had not been understood well.
The Ukrainian advisor sentenced him by saying that in times of war: “There is no point in talking about a mediator called Pope Francis if he adopts a pro-Russian position that is completely obvious to everyone.”
IOR: the Vatican bank
Zelensky’s advisor also made reference to the investments of the Russian Federation in the Vatican Bank IOR: “You have to look at the investments that Russia is making in the Vatican Bank. Why such a strange place in a country called the Vatican? “We need to look at this in a little more detail,” he said.
Accusing statements against the Pope that fell like a bomb on the path of peace that the Holy See has been pursuing for months through Cardinal Matteo Zuppi.
Tense relationships
The sticks that Ukraine throws against the Pope are not new. Already on May 13, when the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky visited Pope Francis, the president’s statements upon leaving the Vatican were not well received. “I have respect for the Pope but we do not need mediators,” he said hours later in a television program. Italian television; How the claims and the supposed booklet with which the first Ukrainian leader would have presented himself to the Pope and would have opened him to impose his points to be respected in the negotiation between Kiev and Moscow did not go down well with Vatican diplomacy.
Source: Ambito
