Pope says Russia’s ‘ferocious’ invasion perhaps provoked and we don’t see the ‘whole drama’

Pope Francis praised the “brave” Ukrainians defending themselves from Russia’s “ferocious” onslaught in an interview published on Tuesday, but said the war was “perhaps in some way provoked” by Nato.

“What we are seeing is the brutality and ferocity with which this war is being carried out by the troops, generally mercenaries, used by the Russians,” he said, describing the Ukrainians as “a brave people”.

But, he warned, “the danger is that we only see this, which is monstrous, and we do not see the whole drama that is unfolding behind this war, which was perhaps in some way either provoked or not prevented”.

The Pope has repeatedly condemned the war in Ukraine but has drawn criticism for failing to explicitly lay the blame on the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

There were “no metaphysical good guys and bad guys here, in an abstract way,” he said in an interview in the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica on Tuesday. “Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined”. Putin, he said, could not be painted as merely the “wolf”, with the West as “Little Red Riding Hood”.

Pope Francis quoted an unnamed head of state as telling him a couple of months before February’s invasion that he was “very concerned about the way Nato was moving” and that the military alliance was “barking at the gates of Russia”.