Posted 10 марта 2023, 11:50
Published 10 марта 2023, 11:50
Modified 10 марта 2023, 14:07
Updated 10 марта 2023, 14:07
Pope Francis has announced that he is still ready for contacts with the Russian government to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.
"I would talk to him, articulating my thoughts clearly, as I do in public. He is an educated man", - the pontiff said in an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper and other Italian media, answering a question about how the pontiff would talk to Vladimir Putin if the talks were held now.
Francis recalled that on the second day after the start of the special operation in Ukraine, he arrived at the Russian embassy in the Vatican to inform that he was ready to come to Moscow, provided that "Putin would leave me a window for settlement negotiations".
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed gratitude, but pointed out that "the moment for negotiations has not come."
Earlier, the Pope stated that the supply of weapons to Kiev is morally permissible. But it is immoral to transfer weapons to Kiev if it can provoke a war.