Ukraine affirmed this Sunday that it will never surrender to Russia and
criticized Pope Francis' statements
asking the belligerents in the conflict to have "the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate."
"Our flag is yellow and blue
. This is the flag by which we live, die and triumph. We will never raise other flags," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said in a message on the X social network.
"As far as the white flag is concerned, we know the Vatican's strategy in the first part of the 20th century.
I ask you to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their fight for life
," he added. clearly referring to the collusion between the Vatican and Nazi Germany.
However, Kuleba said he hopes that the Argentine pontiff
"will find the opportunity to make a canonical visit to Ukraine."
In an interview with Swiss public television RTS broadcast on Saturday, Francis was asked about the possibilities of resolving the conflict in Ukraine and asked not to be
"ashamed to negotiate before things get worse."
A Ukrainian holds a sign that says "I want to live in the country of living heroes!"
during a demonstration calling on authorities to return their relatives from Russian captivity, in central kyiv.
Photo EFE
"I believe that those who see the situation, those who think about the people, those who have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate are stronger," he declared.
The primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which officially has more than 5 million members in Ukraine, also reacted, although without clearly mentioning the pontiff.
The Vatican clarified that the Pope spoke of the white flag
as a willingness to negotiate and not surrender.
“When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you must have the courage to negotiate.
You're ashamed but how many dead will it end up with?
Today it was possible to negotiate in time, look for some countries that mediate.
There are many in the Ukrainian war.
Türkiye has done it,” Francisco explained.
He added that “there is no shame in negotiating before it gets worse.”
"Ukraine is wounded, but not subdued!
(...) Believe me, no one thinks of surrendering, even where the fighting is currently taking place. Listen to our people in the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Odessa, Kharkiv, Sumy," declared Sviatoslav Shevchuk on Saturday during a mass in New York, where he was traveling.
The battle front
Russia once again launched a massive attack with drones against Ukrainian territory,
with a total of 39 of these devices
, of which the Ukrainian air defense forces managed to shoot down 35, while the Russian forces, for their part, destroyed four Ukrainian unmanned aircraft in the border regions.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, "Russian occupiers attacked the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions with four S-300 guided anti-aircraft missiles and launched 39 Shahed attack unmanned aerial vehicles from Cape Chauda, Crimea, and Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Russian Federation." .
He added that 35 of these drones were shot down
in the regions of Kirovograd, Mikolayiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkassy, Odessa, Kherson, Khmelnytskyy, Vinnitsia, Kiev and Zhitomir.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported the downing of four Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod border region overnight.
In the Russian border region of Kursk,
the anti-aircraft alarm was activated
in the morning, according to the regional governor, Román Starovoit, who called on the population to take shelter on his Telegram account.
Later, the ministry reported the downing around 3:30 p.m. Moscow time (12:30 GMT) of two more Ukrainian fixed-wing drones in the Russian region of Novgorod, about 850 kilometers north of Ukraine.
Eleven injured in Russian bombing in Donetsk region
Separately, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office reported that at least
eleven people were injured and 17 multi-story buildings
and 27 vehicles were damaged in a Russian bombing in the early hours of Sunday in the city of Mirnograd, Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine.
According to the investigation, the attack occurred around 3:00 a.m. local time, possibly with S-300 missiles, which hit a residential neighborhood of the city, although the spokesman for the Tavria strategic-operational group of the Ukrainian Army, Dmitró Likhoví, pointed out which were probably new improved aerial bombs.
Source: AFP and AP
P.B.