Moscow said the Pope's comment was “quite understandable,” while NATO said “this is not the time to talk about surrender.”
The Kremlin has said Pope Francis' call for talks to end the Ukraine war was “quite understandable”, while NATO's secretary general said now was not the time to talk about “surrender”.
Pope Francis said in an interview recorded last month that Ukraine should have “the courage of the white flag” to negotiate an end to a war now in its third year.
As Russia makes gains on the battlefield, the West is grappling with how to support Ukraine and the prospect of a dramatic shift in U.S. policy if Donald Trump wins November's presidential election.
“It is quite understandable that he [the pope] spoke in favor of negotiations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly said his country was open to peace talks.
“Unfortunately, both the Pope's statements and the repeated statements of other parties, including ours, have recently received absolutely harsh rejections,” he said.
Moscow's negotiating offers have invariably been based on kyiv giving up territory that Moscow has seized and declared part of Russia, which represents more than a sixth of Ukraine.
Peskov said Western hopes of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia were “the deepest mistake,” adding: “The course of events, primarily on the battlefield, is the clearest proof of this.”
“This is not the time to talk about surrender”: Stoltenberg
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said negotiations that would preserve Ukraine as a sovereign, independent nation would only come when Putin realized he would not win on the battlefield.
“If we want a negotiated, peaceful and lasting solution, the way to achieve it is to provide military support to Ukraine,” he told Reuters news agency at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Asked if this meant that now was not the time to talk about a white flag, he said: “It is not the time to talk about the surrender of Ukrainians. “That will be a tragedy for Ukrainians.”
“It will also be dangerous for all of us. Because then the lesson learned in Moscow is that when they use military force, when they kill thousands of people, when they invade another country, they get what they want,” he stated.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Pope Francis' call for talks with Russia as remote “virtual mediation.”
In his late-night video address, Zelenskyy did not directly address Francis or his comments, but said the pope's ideas had nothing to do with efforts by religious figures in Ukraine to help the country.
“They support us with prayer, with their discussion and with actions. In fact, this is what a church is with the people,” Zelenskyy said.
“Not 2,500 km [1,550 miles] far away, somewhere, virtual mediation between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”
Zelenskyy, who signed a decree in 2022 excluding talks with Putin, said last week that Russia will not be invited to a peace summit to be held in Switzerland.
