Pope criticizes Putin, says plans to travel to Kiev amid war

Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church, made his first direct criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin this Saturday (1st), although without mentioning the name of the president who ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The pope also said he is considering traveling to Ukraine’s capital Kiev amid the war.

“Once again, a potentate [soberano de um Estado, detentor de muito poder e riqueza]sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflict, while ordinary people want to build a future,” he said in a speech to authorities in Malta, where he arrived for a two-day visit.

The pope had already condemned what he called “unjustified aggression” and denounced the atrocities of the war, but he had not yet referred so directly to Vladimir Putin.

“Across eastern Europe, across the land where the sun rises, the dark shadows of war have now spread. We thought that invasions of other countries, savage street battles and atomic threats were grim reminders of a distant past,” he said on Saturday. .

“However, the icy winds of war, which bring only death, destruction and hatred in their wake, powerfully swept the lives of many people and affected us all.”

Earlier, responding to journalists, the pope said he was considering accepting the invitation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and traveling to Kiev.

In a video published early on Saturday morning, Zelensky said Russian troops were moving into the Donbass region after leaving the outskirts of the capital.

In the region, the Red Cross must try once again to evacuate civilians from the city of Mariupol this Saturday, after a failed operation on Friday (1st) that had to be aborted given the serious situation of the clashes in the southern Ukrainian city, which ” made it impossible to proceed”.

Besieged since the early days of the Russian invasion, Mariupol is in the breakaway province of Donetsk and is considered strategic to block Ukrainian access to the sea. The city is home to one of the most serious humanitarian situations, with tens of thousands of people without access to food and water. Russia and Ukraine agreed to open humanitarian corridors to facilitate the evacuation of civilians, but accuse each other of not respecting the ceasefire that allowed residents to pass.

This Saturday, the expectation is to take residents to Berdiansk, another port city to the south, and from there they would take buses to other regions.

After failing to take control of any major Ukrainian cities, Russia said it had shifted the focus of its “special military operation”, as it calls the invasion, to southeastern Ukraine, where it has supported separatists since 2014.

According to Zelensky, there were heavy bombings in Kharkiv, in the northeast of the country. Reuters spoke to two young women at a hospital in the city of Chuhuiv, survivors of an attack on a bus carrying 20 civilians, they said.

“The windows started to swing. Then I saw something that looked like holes. And then bullets started flying above us. Dust, smoke. I was screaming and my mouth was full. [de fumaça]”, said Alina Sheguret, pointing to bruises on her legs and hip.

Russia denies attacking civilians in Ukraine.

Britain’s intelligence service, which has been monitoring troop movements in the war, said on Saturday that Russian troops had abandoned Hostomel airport, on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, which had been the scene of clashes since day one.

He also said that Ukrainian forces continued to advance into regions around Kiev, where Russian troops were starting to leave the front and abandon military equipment such as tanks.

According to British intelligence, the Ukrainians managed to establish a safe route to the city of Kharkiv.

Russia says its troop withdrawal from the Kiev region is a goodwill gesture to contribute to peace talks, but Ukrainians and the country’s allies say Russian forces were forced to regroup in other regions after suffering heavy losses. .

In the early hours of Saturday, Russian missiles hit two cities in the central region of the country, Poltava and Kremenchuk, said the administrator of Poltava province. According to him, the attacks hit residential buildings and infrastructure in the city, but so far there are no reports of deaths.

The Dnipro administration also said missile attacks hit infrastructure in the city and injured two people.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed responsibility for the attacks and said high-precision missiles had demobilized military air routes in Poltava and Dnipro.