In an interview with the editor of Corriere della Sera, Pope Francis said in the Milan newspaper’s headline that he was “ready to meet Putin in Moscow” (below). Also in English.
He reported hearing from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “that the Russians have a precise plan and the war will end on May 9” — which seems to coincide, according to the pope, with Donbas’ actions in Odessa.
But: “I have a bad feeling about all this, I admit, I’m very pessimistic.” He describes his insistence on asking Russia for peace as “a duty to do everything I can to stop the war”, adding: “But I’m a priest, what can I do?”
From the RIA Novosti agency to the Wall Street Journal, the latter with an editorial, the repercussion of the interview was for another passage of his statements, “perhaps NATO’s barking at Russia’s door forced Putin to unleash” the war.
In the same direction as the pope, as reported by the Russian agency and by the French with Le Figaro, Emmanuel Macron spoke for two hours and ten minutes on Tuesday, by telephone, with the Russian president.
Still without progress, he asked for more civilian withdrawals from Mariupol and heard a request to attempt the Ukrainian bombings against the cities of Donbas.
STRANGE WAR
In a report by the Moscow bureau chief, listening to Dmitri Trenin, director of the suspended Carnegie Center, the New York Times now says that “Putin showed restraint” in Ukraine. He did not destroy “railways, roads and bridges”, prevent “cyber attacks, sabotage or further power cuts to Europe”, etc.
For Trenin, “it’s a strange war”, in which “Russia has set strict limits for itself”. As a result, the NYT reports, “Western officials are silently asking why.”
INSTITUTIONS IN DECLINE
Also in the NYT, the leak via Politico of a draft decision on abortion hits “the Supreme Court as an institution”. Her “reputation was already on the wane, with much of the country convinced she is no different” from the government and Congress.
The leak “could make the court an institution like any other in Washington, where rival factions leak secrets in hopes of gaining an advantage.”
RUNNING
In Bloomberg, “Inflation in Brazil is so bad that even Central Bank employees protest”, with an image of the building in Brasília. Having passed 12% a year, “it is so rampant that those in charge of controlling prices are on strike to regain lost purchasing power.”
