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Pope Francis for the first time implicitly criticises Putin over Ukraine invasion
The Swiss Info reported, citing Reuters, Pope Francis came the closest he has yet to implicitly criticising President Vladimir Putin over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying on Saturday a "potentate" was fomenting conflicts for nationalist interests.
Moscow says the action it launched on Feb. 24 is a "special military operation" designed not to occupy territory but to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour. Francis has already rejected that terminology, calling it a war.
"From the east of Europe, from the land of the sunrise, the dark shadows of war have now spread. We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past," the pope said in an address to Maltese officials after arriving on the Mediterranean island nation for a two-day visit.
He said: "However, the icy winds of war, which bring only death, destruction and hatred in their wake, have swept down powerfully upon the lives of many people and affected us all."
He said: "Once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, whereas ordinary people sense the need to build a future that, will either be shared, or not be at all."
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said, Francis' voice was strong but he sat to deliver his speech. For the first time in his 36 trips abroad, a flare up of pain in his knee had forced him to use a freight lift to board the plane in Rome and to disembark in Valletta - to avoid "unnecessary strain."
Pope Francis meets with Iraqi Christian leaders
The pope, who was limping as he walked in the presidential palace, has already strongly condemned what he has called an "unjustified aggression" and denounced "atrocities" in the war.
Source: swissinfo
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