(Moscow) Russia has expressed “outrage” over remarks by Pope Francis about the alleged role of Russian ethnic minorities in the conflict in Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday.
Pope discusses ‘cruelty’ facing Ukraine with Russian offensive in interview with American Jesuit newspaper America and published Monday on its site.
“When I talk about Ukraine, I talk about cruelty because I have a lot of information about the cruelty of the troops” arriving in Ukraine, said the pope, who spoke in Spanish.
“Perhaps the most cruel are those who come from Russia, but (who are) not of Russian tradition, like Chechens, Buryats,” he said.
Chechnya is a republic of the Russian Caucasus with a Muslim majority, Buryatia is a Buddhist region of Siberia located between Lake Baikal and Mongolia.
Moscow filed a formal complaint with the Vatican on Tuesday over the pope’s remarks, according to state news agency RIA Novosti.
“I expressed my indignation after these insinuations and indicated that nothing could shake the cohesion and the unity of the Russian multinational people,” Russian ambassador to the Holy See, Alexander Avdeyev, told the agency.
Russia was accused in September of disproportionately mobilizing ethnic minority men from Siberia and the Caucasus to support its offensive in Ukraine, after the Kremlin announced a partial mobilization that affected around 300,000 reservists .
According to Kremlin critics, minorities concentrated in poor and remote Russian regions also have more soldiers killed at the front in Ukraine, compared to ethnic Russians.
But these minorities have also been accused of playing a role in atrocities attributed by Kyiv to Russian forces, such as the Boutcha massacre.
The spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, lambasted the Pope’s remarks on Monday on Telegram, saying: “It’s not even Russophobia anymore, it’s perversion”.
The NGO Free Buryatia Foundation (“Free Buryatia”), based in the United States and which notably provides legal assistance to Russian soldiers who do not wish to take part in the offensive in Ukraine, also criticized Pope Francis’ remarks.
“Stereotypes remain stereotypes, no matter who reproduces them: activists, politicians or spiritual leaders. And the pope’s remarks about Buryats and Chechens are not only racist stereotypes, but also lies,” the organization said in a statement posted on social media.