ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 14
Belarusian factor
The Belarusian Armed Forces began a command-staff exercise focused on testing command and control capabilities on June 14. However, Belarus remains unlikely to join the war in Ukraine on behalf of Russia. Head of Logistics for the Belarusian Armed Forces Major General Andrei Burdyko announced that the exercise will involve military authorities, unspecified military units, and logistics organizations and is intended to improve the coherency of command-and-control and logistics support to increase the overall level of training and practical skills of personnel in a “dynamically changing environment.”[1]
Despite the launch of this exercise, Belarus remains unlikely to join the war in Ukraine due to the threat of domestic unrest that President Alexander Lukashenko faces if he involves already-limited Belarusian military assets in combat.[2] Any Belarusian entrance into the war would also likely provoke further crippling sanctions on Belarus. Any unsupported Belarusian attack against northern Ukraine would likely be highly ineffective, and the quality of Belarusian troops remains low.
ISW will continue to monitor Belarusian movements but does not forecast a Belarusian entrance into the war at this time.
Russian plan to carve up Ukraine
Russian authorities may be accelerating plans to annex occupied areas of Ukraine and are arranging political and administrative contingencies for control of annexed territories. Russian military correspondent Sasha Kots posted an image of a map that was displayed at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum depicting a proposed scheme for the “administrative-territorial” division of Ukraine following the war on a three-to-five-year transition scale.
The proposed scheme divides Ukrainian oblasts into Russian “territorial districts” and suggests the manner in which Russian authorities hope to incorporate Ukrainian territory directly into Russia. Advisor to the Mayor of Mariupol Petro Andryushchenko additionally outlined a series of indicators that he claimed suggest that Russian authorities are planning to annex occupied Donetsk Oblast as soon as September 1, 2022.
Andryushchenko stated that the leadership of occupied Donetsk has entirely passed from authorities of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) to Russian officials and that Russian educational authorities are already referring to Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson as regions of Russia. Andryushchenko additionally stated that the financial and legal systems in occupied Donetsk have already transitioned to Russian systems.
Despite the apparent lack of a Kremlin-backed mandate concerning the condition of occupied areas, Russian authorities are likely pushing to expedite a comprehensive annexation process in order to consolidate control over Ukrainian territories and integrate them into Russia’s political and economic environment. However, the Kremlin retains several options in occupied Ukrainian territory and is not bound to any single annexation plan.
Russia seeks to fill army ranks
The Russian military leadership continues to expand its pool of eligible recruits by manipulating service requirements. Russian milblogger Yuri Kotyenok suggested that Russian authorities are preparing to increase the age limit for military service from 40 to 49 and to drop the existing requirement for past military service to serve in tank and motorized infantry units.
If true, the shift demonstrates the Kremlin’s increasing desperation for recruits to fill frontline units, regardless of their poor skills. Kotyenok echoed calls made by other milbloggers to reduce the health requirements for those serving in rear and support roles.
Kotyenok additionally noted that while Russian recruits must have clean criminal records to serve, private military companies such as the Wagner Group will allow those with “mild misdemeanors” into service and that many of these low-level offenders have been mobilized into combat with Wagner in Donetsk and Luhansk. The Russian military leadership will likely continue efforts to expand the pool of eligible recruits, even at the cost of high-quality military personnel.
Key Takeaways
Russian military authorities are pursuing options to increase the available pool of eligible recruits to account for continued personnel losses in Ukraine.
Russian forces are continuing to fight for control of the Azot industrial plant and have destroyed all bridges between Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, likely to isolate the remaining Ukrainian defenders within the city from critical lines of communication.
Russian forces continue to prepare for offensive operations southeast of Izyum and west of Lyman toward Slovyansk.
Russian forces are continuing offensive operations to the east of Bakhmut near the T1302 highway to cut Ukrainian lines of communication to Severodonetsk-Lysychansk.
Russian forces continued offensive operations to push Ukrainian troops away from frontlines northeast of Kharkiv City.
Ukrainian counterattacks have forced Russian troops on the Southern Axis to take up and strengthen defensive positions.
By Karolina Hird, Mason Clark, George Barros, and Grace Mappes
See the full report here.
The post ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 14 appeared first on KyivPost.
The next battle along former President Donald Trump’s impeachment revenge warpath is a GOP primary contest in western Michigan featuring a lopsided fundraising contest that favors one of his biggest congressional enemies — Rep. Peter Meijer.
Meijer—a first-term Republican who voted to impeach Trump—on Wednesday debuts his inaugural television ad of the cycle, shared first with POLITICO.
Titled “Pure Michigan,” it highlights Meijer’s Iraq deployment in the Army Reserves and hints that he supports some of the former president’s signature policies, including building a border wall, but without mentioning Trump. “I am fighting for the values that run through every community and every person in West Michigan,” Meijer says.
“I’m running on my record as a proven conservative who is committed to upholding the Constitution and delivering results for West Michigan, and our first TV ad underscores this dedication,” Meijer told POLITICO in a statement.
Meijer, who is squaring off against John Gibbs, a Trump-endorsed former Housing and Urban Development official, has outraised his challenger by a more than 10-to-1 margin in the Grand Rapids-based district. Meijer has a $1.5 million war chest to Gibbs’ $81,000, and the incumbent has reserved $650,000 in television and radio ads through the Aug. 2 primary. On Tuesday, the ad-tracking firm AdImpact reported a $37,365 buy from Meijer in the Grand Rapids media market.
Meijer’s primary campaign is yet another test of whether Trump’s endorsement can elevate a MAGA challenger not just with voters but among donors, and of the former president’s sway in a district that skews suburban and Democratic.
Meijer isn’t the only candidate in Trump’s crosshairs for supporting his impeachment. On Tuesday in South Carolina, Rep. Tom Rice, who joined Meijer and eight other House Republicans in voting for Trump’s impeachment for his actions on Jan. 6, failed to advance to a runoff against state Rep. Russell Fry, whom Trump endorsed—a possible bad omen for Meijer’s chances.
Meijer and Rice, though, have taken different tacks toward messaging their impeachment votes. While Meijer doesn’t sidestep his vote, he also hasn’t made it the cornerstone of his re-election bid. Instead, Meijer has focused on President Joe Biden’s record on supply chain disruptions, inflation, and the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, where Meijer flew last August on an unauthorized, secret bipartisan junket with Massachusetts Democrat and fellow veteran Rep. Seth Moulton. Rice, by contrast, has drawn attention to his impeachment vote during campaign events.
In Michigan, it’s increasingly evident that Trump’s endorsement of Gibbs has failed to spark a fundraising spree. For his main committee account, Gibbs has raised $227,502 since launching his campaign last November, compared to Meijer’s $2.3 million over the election cycle to date. Gibbs’s Great Lakes Leadership Committee—a joint-fundraising committee run by Jason Boles, the campaign’s treasurer who fulfills similar roles for Trump-aligned candidates Herschel Walker for Senate and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia—raised $292,341 at a fundraiser held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida earlier this year. It remains unclear how much Gibbs’s campaign will pocket from that haul. All together, Gibbs has access to $380,376.
What is clear is just how much money Gibbs’s campaign is willing to spend on Trump’s support: Earlier this spring, Gibbs’ campaign dropped $98,000 for “event venue and catering” at Mar-a-Lago—thousands of dollars more than he has in remaining campaign cash.
“By all appearances, he seems to be a clown of a campaign candidate and running an incompetent campaign,” said Jeff Timmer, the former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party and a senior adviser to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “That being said, he could still win, depending on what outside sources and independent committees do. It just depends on how badly Trump wants to put some lead on the target.”
A spokesperson for Gibbs did not immediately return a request for comment.
Among the five Trump-endorsed challengers who are opposing GOP candidates who voted for impeachment, Gibbs has raised the second-lowest amount—and the least amount from donors. Only Loren Culp, who is challenging Rep. Dan Newhouse in Washington, has raised less and has less cash on hand, with $191,319 and $23,543 respectively.
Gibbs has a history of sharing unfounded, conspiratorial, and inflammatory social media posts, including that John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman, was involved in Satanic rituals. Gibbs’ former boss at HUD, former 2016 presidential contender and native Michigander Ben Carson, has endorsed Gibbs.
When Trump visited Michigan in April, he made fun of Meijer’s last name. “A guy who spells his name M-E-I-J-E-R but they pronounce it Meyer,” Trump said at a rally in Washington Township. “The hell kind of a spelling is that?” It is, in fact, a name emblazoned on supermarkets across Michigan and the Midwest and well known in households across his suburban district. Meijer is the wealthy scion of that supermarket chain’s founder, Frederik Meijer. “That name is worth a gazillion dollars in that district,” Timmer said.
Despite his funding advantage, Meijer faces a difficult path through the primary. A February poll found that in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with Gibbs on an informed ballot, Meijer trailed Gibbs by 18 points, 19 percent to 37 percent, with the rest of voters divided among candidates who later dropped out or failed to gain ballot access. More than half of voters—55 percent—remained undecided. And Meijer was underwater with primary voters, with a 34 percent favorable and 50 percent unfavorable rating.
Even if Meijer prevails in the primary, he faces long odds in the general election. On the Democratic side, Hillary Scholten, who lost to Meijer in 2020, is running in a newly redrawn district that includes several large suburbs and is rated by POLITICO as a toss-up , and could favor Democrats if Gibbs can oust Meijer . The new district voted for Biden by 9 percentage points and has a small advantage in Democratic voter registration. On the other hand, Scholten only has $470,767 cash on hand.
“Even if Meijer gets through, if Democrats can get to anything close to a neutral macro-environment, Hillary Scholten’s going to win that district,” Timmer said.
Democrats panned Meijer’s campaign, telegraphing they see the race as competitive.
“Peter Meijer is in panic mode trying to stave off his Trump-endorsed primary challenger and save his political career,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Helen Kalla said in a statement. “No matter who emerges from this brutal primary, Hillary Scholten is well-positioned to flip this seat blue in November.”
application/octet-stream 1354087706The attack set off a debate over women’s rights and the threat of sexual violence. It also highlighted how divisive feminism remains in the country.
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image/jpeg 15pol-takeaways-mace-photo-moth.jpgRussian President Vladimir Putin is a "very angry man" thinking about revenge after a series of military failures in Ukraine, said Nile Gardiner, a foreign policy expert and ex-aide to former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in an interview published Saturday.
Gardiner made the comments in an article published in Express.co.uk about Russia's ongoing war with its Eastern European neighbor. However, the foreign policy expert said he doesn't believe Putin would go as far as using nuclear weapons, a prospect that the Kremlin has repeatedly warned about.
"The Russian rhetoric about the use of nuclear weapons is overwhelmingly intended to intimidate," he told the news outlet. "This is just classic Russian propaganda we are seeing here, where they are making all kinds of threats and are trying to divide the Western alliance."
Nonetheless, Gardiner added that the Russian leader should not be "underestimated," stating that "Putin is a very angry man these days, always thinking about revenge and all sorts of things."
His comments come more than three months after Putin sent over 100,000 troops to invade Ukraine for a so-called "special military operation." Since then, Ukrainian officials have said the bloody war has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and troops, and has displaced more than 8 million people from their homes.
However, Russian troops have been met with fierce opposition and have so far recorded few successes. At the beginning of the invasion, the Russian military failed to capture the capital city of Kyiv and was quickly forced to retreat. Russian troops have since refocused their efforts around the country's southern and eastern regions, but have faced significant losses.
Ukrainian officials have estimated that some 20,000 Russian troops have died, while at least a dozen of the nation's top military generals have been killed, Newsweek previously reported.
Earlier this month, Russia's military was met with a disastrous attempt to cross the Seversky Donets River in eastern Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of soldiers, and highlighting how yet another key mission has gone wrong. Meanwhile, a recent Newsweek report showed how Russia's air-warfare has failed to pay off, despite the fact that it has fired more missiles in Ukraine than any other country has since World War II.
The military struggles have also resulted in a shortage of Russian troops and low morale among those on the frontlines. In some cases, Russian soldiers have reportedly stopped taking orders and have even sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting.
"There are good reasons for low morale on the Russian side. The war isn't going well. Its purpose is unclear, and fighting a war against a neighbor—with whom it's easy to communicate—is psychologically burdensome to soldiers," Michael Kimmage, a Catholic University history professor and former member of the secretary's policy planning staff at the State Department, told Newsweek earlier this month.
Amid such losses, Russian politicians and media figures have ramped up threatening messages about the potential use of nuclear weapons. Earlier this week, Aleksey Zhuravlyov, leader of the nationalist party Rodina (Motherland), appeared to suggest that Europe would sooner be "reduced to ashes" before Russia loses its war. Putin has not explicitly said that the country plans to launch a nuclear attack, but several Western officials have warned that it may be necessary to prepare for such actions.
The war has repeatedly been condemned by the U.S. and other Western nations, who have imposed significant sanctions against Russia and provided weaponry and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.
Wealthy Russian elite are at risk of losing their fortunes as the Kremlin will be devastated by a coup as President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine crumbles. Professor Michael Clarke predicted the Russian “mafia state” would fall to a coup as Putin’s “reign of terror” begins to fall apart. The defence and security analyst suggested that Russian military strategy had largely failed to make the territorial gains promised in the early stages of the Ukraine invasion, leading the Russian population to increasingly lose faith in the leadership of the Kremlin. Speaking on Sky News, Professor Clarke said: “We’re waiting for some sort of coup to take place, you can't guarantee whether it will be in three months' time, or three years, or five years time.”
The defence analyst suggested President Putin had been forced to persist with the invasion of Ukraine despite Russian military failures as the Kremlin’s authority was pinned on victory in the war.
Professor Clarke continued: “He’s got nowhere to go, Russia has got nowhere to go under his leadership.
“This war will get worse for Russia even if he succeeds in the Donbas and even if he were to succeed in taking Odessa, which I don’t think he will.
“The people around him are beginning to lose very heavily and although they depend on him for their kleptocracy.”
President Putin's leadership is reportedly under threat from an impending coup (Image: GETTY)
Professor Clarke labelled Russia a "mafia state" (Image: Sky News)Professor Clarke suggested Putin would begin to face diminished support among the Russian elite as oligarchs begin to fear losing their wealth.
He added: “Russia is a mafia state and, again that’s not my phrase, that’s the phrase of most good analysts, it’s become a mafia state.
“So, the only way that the people around him can preserve any of their privileges and wealth, eventually, is to remove him.”
The defence analyst described Putin’s Russia as a “mafia state” meaning the Kremlin officials, police and military authorities within the country are highly corrupt and involved in serious organised crime.
Read more: WATCH Ukrainian forces destory Russian occupiers military unit
The Russian Leader appeared unwell as he steadied himself on a podium during a Kremlin address (Image: GETTY)
The professor suggested Russia would be unlikely to make significant territorial gains in Ukraine (Image: GETTY)Despite his predictions of an impending coup against the Kremlin, Professor Clarke did not outline exactly when he believed President Putin would be removed from power.
However, he did insist that the Russian leader’s reign was coming towards its end as Putin’s wealthy allies begin to fear defeat in Ukraine.
Professor Clarke said: “Now, who will start that, we don’t know because he is also running a reign of terror which is now every bit as bad of Stalin’s reign of terror was, up to the point where Stalin died in 1953.
“For him, the outcome is certain, the timing is uncertain.”
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There has been fierce speculation that President Putin is masking some form of serious illness (Image: GETTY)Professor Clarke drew comparisons between President Putin and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Towards the end of his leadership, there were plentiful rumours of a serious decline in Stalin’s health, speculation that is now mirrored in the health concerns surrounding President Putin.
Other military analysts have claimed President Putin rushed the invasion of Ukraine in order to distract from his evident decline in health and protect his appearance as a strong leader.
The Russian President initially promised a swift “special military operation” which would seize Ukrainian territory, although, as the war in Ukraine drags on into the fourth month of conflict, Putin’s military is reportedly struggling to maintain artillery supplies to fuel the offensive front.
This article links to a state controlled Russian media. Read more.
This article links to a state controlled Russian media. Read more.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seen shaking and seemingly struggling to stand in a new video.
The UK's Ministry of Defence briefing also revealed that Moscow's offensive in the Donbas region "has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule". And Oleh Sinegubov, Kharkiv's regional governor, stated that Ukrainian forces have launched a "counter offensive" as they seek to push back Vladimir Putin's troops.
The MoD yesterday posted: "Despite small-scale initial advances, Russia has failed to achieve substantial territorial gains over the past month whilst sustaining consistently high levels of attrition.
"Russia has now likely suffered losses of one-third of the ground combat force it committed in February."
The ministry added that the invading force was unlikely to accelerate its rate of advance dramatically over the next 30 days.
Estimates for the number of Russian troops in Ukraine vary, but the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies in March put the figure at 140,000.
If that was accurate, it would mean the number of soldiers killed, wounded or missing in action, based on the MoD's calculations, is more than 45,000. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky last week reckoned 27,000 had been killed.
Since February 24, when Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of his neighbours, Ukraine's military has defended and fought back with such success that Russia's commanders were forced to abandon an advance on the capital Kyiv, before being driven away from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city.
Horrors... Ukrainians in apartment damaged by Russian shelling (Image: GETTY)A counteroffensive is also underway near the Russian-held town of Izium. But Ukrainian reports said Russians were advancing elsewhere in the Donbas region, the main theatre of war over the past month.
Izium straddles the Donets river, about 75 miles from Kharkiv on the main highway heading south-east.
Mr Sinegubov said: "The hottest spot remains the Izium direction. Our forces have switched to a counteroffensive there. The enemy is retreating on some fronts."
But Ukraine's military acknowledged setbacks yesterday, saying: "Russian forces continue to advance in the Lyman, Sievierodonetsk, Avdiivka and Kurakhiv areas in the broader Donbas region."
In the west of the country, near the Polish border, missiles destroyed military infrastructure overnight on Saturday and were fired at the Lviv region from the Black Sea.
Mr Zelensky said talks were underway seeking a way to evacuate wounded soldiers from Mariupol in the south in return for the release of Russian prisoners of war.
A large convoy of cars and vans carrying refugees from that city arrived in Ukrainian-controlled Zaporizhzhia on Saturday night.
But there was no let-up yesterday in Russia's bombardment of the Azovstal steelworks, where a few hundred Ukrainian fighters are valiantly holding out.
Disturbing footage appeared to indicate bombs raining down on that last stronghold.
Petr Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, claimed the video shows Putin's forces dropping 9M22S incendiary and phosphorus bombs, which burn at temperatures in excess of 2,000C.
Yet Nato deputy secretary-general Mircea Geoana claimed the Ukrainians were now in a position to defeat the Russians.
He said: "The brutal invasion of Russia is losing momentum. With significant support from allies and partners - billions of dollars - we know that with the bravery of the Ukrainian people and army and with our help, Ukraine can win this war."
Mr Zelensky's troops have deployed many of their new US M777 howitzers at the front lines. Washington has delivered all but one of the 90 artillery pieces it was due to send.
The M777 is seen as particularly significant because of its long range and accuracy. The US embassy reposted a video of Kyiv's soldiers training to use the weapons.
WASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani, who helped lead President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election as his personal lawyer, sat on Friday for a lengthy interview with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to people familiar with the closed-door interview.
Mr. Giuliani’s interview, which was virtual, lasted for more than seven hours, the people said. The interview was transcribed, and he was under oath. He took a break in the middle of it to host his hourlong afternoon radio show.
It was unclear what Mr. Giuliani told the committee, but his centrality to Mr. Trump’s various attempts to subvert the election made him a potentially pivotal witness for the panel, with knowledge of details about interactions with members of Congress and others involved in the plans.
Mr. Giuliani, whose interview was reported earlier by CNN, had negotiated with the panel about testifying for months, and he reached an agreement to speak about matters other than his conversations with Mr. Trump or any other topic he believed was covered by attorney-client privilege.
Earlier this month, he abruptly pulled out of a scheduled interview with the committee after the panel refused to let him record the session. He later dropped that objection and agreed to testify after the panel threatened to use its “enforcement options,” an implied referral to the Justice Department for criminal contempt of Congress, the people said.
The committee has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and has recommended criminal contempt of Congress charges against four of Mr. Trump’s closest allies, who have refused to cooperate fully.
Mr. Giuliani was one of the last major witnesses the committee had pressed to interview in the final weeks before it begins holding public hearings in June. Others include more than a half-dozen Republican members of Congress, such as Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader.
The panel has not yet made final decisions about whether to call Mr. Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence or Virginia Thomas, a right-wing activist who pushed to overturn the 2020 election and who is the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas. The chairman of the panel, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, recently indicated the committee might not ultimately summon any of the three.
Mr. Giuliani was a key figure in Mr. Trump’s attempts to stave off electoral defeat and was involved in plans to disrupt the normal workings of the Electoral College by persuading lawmakers in contested swing states to draw up alternate slates of electors showing Mr. Trump as victorious in states actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Giuliani was also instrumental in vetting a plan to use the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines and examine the data housed inside them for supposed evidence of fraud. At Mr. Trump’s direction, Mr. Giuliani asked a top homeland security official if the department could legally take control of the machines — a notion the official shot down. Mr. Giuliani later opposed an even more explosive proposal to have the military seize the machines.
Mr. Giuliani was subpoenaed with other members of a legal team that billed itself as an “elite strike force” and pursued a set of lawsuits on behalf of Mr. Trump in which they promulgated conspiracy theories and made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the election.
The committee’s subpoena sought all documents that Mr. Giuliani had detailing the pressure campaign that he and other Trump allies initiated targeting state officials, the seizure of voting machines, contact with members of Congress, any evidence to support the conspiracy theories he pushed and any arrangements for his fees.
On Jan. 6, speaking to a crowd of Trump supporters before a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol, Mr. Giuliani called for “trial by combat.” Later, after the building was under siege, both he and Mr. Trump called lawmakers in an attempt to delay the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.
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Pope Francis has said Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was “perhaps somehow provoked” as he recalled a conversation in the run-up to the war in which he was warned Nato was “barking at the gates of Russia”.
In an interview with the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, conducted last month and published on Tuesday, the pontiff condemned the “ferocity and cruelty of the Russian troops” while warning against what he said was a fairytale perception of the conflict as good versus evil.
“We need to move away from the usual Little Red Riding Hood pattern, in that Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad one,” he said. “Something global is emerging and the elements are very much entwined.”
Francis added that a couple of months before the war he met a head of state, who he did not identify but described as “a wise man who speaks little, a very wise man indeed … He told me that he was very worried about how Nato was moving. I asked him why, and he replied: ‘They are barking at the gates of Russia. They don’t understand that the Russians are imperial and can’t have any foreign power getting close to them.’”
He added: “We do not see the whole drama unfolding behind this war, which was, perhaps, somehow either provoked or not prevented.”
Shortly before the invasion, Vladimir Putin had demanded Nato rule out allowing Ukraine, which borders Russia, into the military alliance.
The pope said he was not “pro-Putin” and that it would be “simplistic and wrong to say such a thing”. He also said Russia had “miscalculated” the war. “It is also true that the Russians thought it would all be over in a week. They encountered a brave people, a people who are struggling to survive and who have a history of struggle.”
On Tuesday morning, the pontiff published a message saying the invasion of Ukraine was a violation of a country’s right to self-determination.
“The war in Ukraine has now been added to the regional wars that for years have taken a heavy toll of death and destruction,” he said in a message for the Roman Catholic church’s World Day of the Poor, which will be marked in November. “Yet here the situation is even more complex due to the direct intervention of a ‘superpower’ aimed at imposing its own will in violation of the principle of the self-determination of peoples.”
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Meanwhile, he told La Civiltà Cattolica that he hoped to meet the Russian Orthodox patriarch, Kirill, a close ally of Putin who supports the war in Ukraine, at an interreligious event in Kazakhstan in September.
Kirill scolded Francis after the pontiff urged him not to become the Kremlin’s “altar boy” in an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper. Kirill accused the pope of choosing an “incorrect tone” to convey his message, adding that such remarks would damage dialogue between the two churches.
The pair had been due to meet in Jerusalem in June but the trip was cancelled due to the war.
- Pope Francis says Ukraine war was ‘perhaps somehow provoked’ The Guardian
- Pope Francis Says Russia's War Against Ukraine Was 'Perhaps Somehow Provoked' and Isn't the 'Real Problem' The Daily Beast
- Pope raps Russian 'cruelty' in Ukraine, says invasion violates nation's rights Yahoo News
- Pope Francis criticizes Russia over cruelty in Ukraine but says war perhaps provoked New York Post
- Pope Francis blasts Russian 'ferocity and cruelty'; 'scorched earth' bombing drives Ukraine troops to brink: Live updates USA TODAY
- View Full Coverage on Google News
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