Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican on Wednesday criticized Pope Francis for referring to Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian ultranationalist killed by a car bomb near Moscow, as an innocent victim of the war.
It is highly unusual for ambassadors to the Vatican to publicly criticize the pope.
“Innocents pay for war,” Francis said earlier at his Wednesday general audience in a phrase referring to “that poor girl thrown into the air by a bomb under a car seat in Moscow.”
Russia blamed Ukrainian agents for the murder, a charge Kiev denies. Alexander Dugin, Darya’s father, has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking and other territories into a new Russian empire that would include Ukraine.
Darya Dugina has largely supported her father’s ideas and appeared on state TV in her own right to offer support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
In a tweet, Andrii Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, said the pope’s words were “disappointing”.
“As [é] possible to mention one of the ideologues of imperialism [russo] as an innocent victim? She was killed by Russians,” he said.
Francis called the war “madness”. He said Ukrainian and Russian children had been killed and that “being an orphan knows no nationality”.
In his tweet, Yurash said, “You can’t talk in the same categories about abuser and victim, rapist and raped.” The Vatican did not immediately respond to Yurash’s comments.
Elsewhere in his speech, Pope Francis called for “concrete steps” to end the war in Ukraine and avoid the risk of a nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia plant.
Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of shooting at the facility, the largest of its kind in Europe and which pro-Moscow forces took over shortly after the February 24 invasion. The United Nations called for the demilitarization of the area.
Francis spoke on the day Ukraine marked its independence from Soviet rule in 1991 and six months after the invasion of Russian forces.
In an interview with Reuters last month, Francis said he wanted to visit Kiev but also wanted to go to Moscow, preferably first, to promote peace.
Source: CNN Brasil
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