Pope Francis said that Russian missile attacks that have “struck the civilian population and vital infrastructure” of Ukraine “are ignoble, unacceptable, and cannot be justified in any way.”
The Pope made this judgment in a letter to Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. His letter was sent on January 3, in a reaction to Russian attacks of December 29; the text was made public by the Vatican on January 12.
In the letter the Pope said that after months of fighting the war in Ukraine could slip out of the world’s consciousness. He continued: “It is our duty, instead, not to allow silence to fall over it.”