Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sharply rejected the Pope’s appeal. The church is with the people, said Zelenskyj in his evening video speech on Sunday. “And not two and a half thousand kilometers away, somewhere, to virtually mediate between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”
The former Ukrainian ambassador to Austria, Olexander Scherba, called the Pope a “believer of little faith” using a Bible verse. Kiev officials did not comment. Ukraine refuses to negotiate as long as Russia does not release the occupied territories. From previous Pope statements, Ukrainians have the feeling that Francis has more understanding for Russia than for their attacked country.
Criticism from Germany
Pope Francis’ statements about the war in Ukraine have also been met with horror and sharp criticism in Germany. Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens) told the editorial network Germany on Sunday: “It is Vladimir Putin who can end the war and the suffering immediately – not Ukraine. Anyone who demands that Ukraine simply surrender is giving the aggressor, what he took illegally and thereby accepts the annihilation of Ukraine.”
The FDP defense politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann also sharply contradicted Pope Francis’ appeal. “Before the Ukrainian victims raise the white flag, the Pope should loudly and unmistakably call on the brutal Russian perpetrators to take down their pirate flag, the symbol of death and Satan,” the chairwoman of the Bundestag Defense Committee told the newspapers on Sunday the Funke media group. She added: “I’m ashamed as a Catholic that he doesn’t do that.”
The President of the Evangelical Church Congress 2025 in Hanover, Anja Siegesmund, told the RND: “The longing for peace must not lead to the right of the supposedly stronger one winning.” Anyone who defends their own freedom needs the support of everyone who now lives in freedom.