Pope Francis has said that the war in Ukraine would be “madness.” He expressed hope that tensions between Kyiv and Moscow would be overcome through multilateral dialogue, in particular through the Normandy format.
This was reported by Reuters.
He made a statement yesterday, February 9, at a general audience in the Vatican.
“Let us continue to pray to God for peace so that through serious dialogue the tensions and threats of war can be overcome and so that negotiations in the Normandy format can help achieve this goal. And let’s not forget, war is madness,” said the pontiff.
Earlier, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Metropolitan Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), invited Pope Francis to visit Ukraine. According to the metropolitan, the visit would be symbolic for the settlement of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
We should remind that earlier, the Pope called not to allow “metastases” of the conflict to spread across Ukraine.
We should add, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine said the situation near the borders of the country hadn’t changed significantly. The Ministry of Defense assures that the possibility of significant escalation on the part of Russia continues to be assessed as low.