For Pope Francis, the Russia-Ukraine conflict should not be seen in "good versus bad" rhetoric, and stresses that the war "may have been provoked in some way."
In an interview with the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, conducted last month and published on Tuesday, the Pope condemned "the savagery and cruelty of Russian troops" and stressed that care must be taken in defining conflict as good against evil.
"We have to get away from the Little Red Riding Hood idea. Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was bad," he said. "Something global is emerging and the elements are very intertwined."
The Pope added that a few months before the war he met a head of state, whom he did not identify, but described as "a wise man who speaks little, a very wise man indeed ... He told me he was very worried about how NATO was moving. I asked him why and he replied: "They are leaving at the gates of Russia. They do not understand that the Russians are imperial and can not accept any foreign power to approach them."
"We do not see all the drama unfolding after this war, which, perhaps, was somehow either provoked or prevented."
The pope noted that he was not "pro-Putin" and that it would be wrong to say so. He also said that Russia had "miscalculated" the war. "It is also true that the Russians thought that everything would be over in a week. "They faced a brave people, a people who are struggling to survive and who have a history of war."
Earlier in the day, the Pope issued a statement saying the invasion of Ukraine was a violation of a country's right to self-determination.
