Ukraine has accused Pope Francis of spreading the identical “imperialist propaganda” that the Kremlin ‘makes use of to justify the killing of hundreds of Ukrainians’.
It comes after the worldwide head of the Catholic Church reportedly advised Russian youths to do not forget that they’re the heirs of the “the nice Russian empire” created by tsars equivalent to Peter the Nice. President Vladimir Putin has used related rhetoric to justify the invasion of Ukraine.
The Pope seems to have made the feedback in a reside video handle to Catholic youths gathered in St Petersburg. The supreme pontiff, who was born in Argentina, was studying a ready speech in his native Spanish tongue.
Nonetheless, because the speech ended, movies shared by non secular web sites present the pope change to Italian and ad-lib a brand new ending, which stated Russia’s kids have been the heirs of “the nice Russian empire” of the previous. The Vatican launched the textual content of the handle on Saturday – however didn’t embrace the Pope’s final paragraph about “the nice mom Russia”.
The movies on-line present the Pope saying: “Don’t overlook (your) heredity. You’re heirs of the nice Russia – the nice Russia of the saints, of kings, the nice Russia of Peter the Nice, of Catherine II, the nice Russian empire, cultured, a lot tradition, a lot humanity. You’re the heirs of the nice mom Russia. Go ahead.”
The feedback have been condemned by Ukraine. On Fb, Oleg Nikolenko – a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Overseas Ministry – stated: “It’s by such imperialistic propaganda, ‘religious staples’ and ” the necessity to rescue ‘the nice mom of Russia’ the Kremlin justifies the killing of hundreds of Ukrainians and Ukrainian ladies and the destruction of tons of of Ukrainian cities and villages.
“It is vitally unlucky that Russian grand-state concepts, which, in reality, are the reason for Russia’s persistent aggression, knowingly or unknowingly, come from the Pope’s mouth, whose mission, in our understanding, is exactly to open the eyes of Russian youth to the disastrous course of the present Russian management.”