The Vatican confirmed on Thursday (December 15th) that an apology has been made to Russia after comments by Pope Francis on the alleged cruel behavior of Russian ethnic minorities in the conflict in Ukraine.
Asked about a statement by Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who said Thursday that the Vatican had apologized for the pope’s remarks, Vatican press office director Matteo Bruni said: “At the moment, I can confirm that there have been diplomatic contacts in this direction. »
“Russophobic” remarks according to Moscow
Earlier in the day, Maria Zakharova told Moscow news agencies that she had received, “through diplomatic channels”, ” a call (…) of the Vatican, containing an official statement on behalf of the Secretary of State of the Holy See, Pietro Parolin, regarding the above-mentioned statement of the pontiff”. She had declared the incident closed.
The pope had affirmed, at the end of November in an interview, that some of the fighters “the most cruel” in the Russian offensive in Ukraine “are not of Russian tradition”but belong to minorities like “Chechens, Buryats”, in reference to the indigenous peoples of these Russian regions. These comments provoked furious reactions in Russia, Maria Zakharova, writing on Telegram: “It’s not even Russophobia anymore, it’s perversion. »
Russia was accused in September of disproportionately mobilizing ethnic minority men from Siberia and the Caucasus to support its offensive in Ukraine. According to Kremlin critics, minorities concentrated in poor and remote Russian regions also have more soldiers killed on the front lines in Ukraine, compared to ethnic Russians. But these minorities have also been accused of playing a role in atrocities attributed by kyiv to Russian forces, such as the Boutcha massacre.
conference for peace
These apologies come a few days after the Vatican proposed mediation between Russia and Ukraine in order to put an end to the Russian invasion that began on February 24. An initiative immediately rejected by Moscow. On Tuesday, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See, defended the creation of a European conference for peace in Ukraine on the model of the Helsinki conference of 1975, a forum for dialogue between the Soviet bloc , Western Europe and the United States.