Ukraine slams Pope's 'white flag' call, vows no surrender to Russia
The portrait of 23 year-old Valentyna Makarenko, a Ukrainian machine gunner who was killed fighting Russian forces in the Kharkiv region in January, on her grave in the Alley of Heroes cemetery, in Kyiv, on 8 March 2024. Ukraine reacted angrily, pointing to the Vatican's poor history in geopolitics.
"Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. Ukrainian officials compared the statement to some of the Catholic church collaborating with Nazi Germany during World War II. " lesson is only one -- if we want to finish war, we have to do everything to kill Dragon!," he said on social media.
Kuleba said Kyiv hoped Francis would visit his war-torn country after more than two years of battling its bigger neighbour."Three people died as a result of today's shelling in the Donetsk region," said the head of the embattled region, Vadym Filashkin, on social media.