Image Credit: VINCENZO PINTO / Contributor / Getty 
Pope Francis participated in an interview on Monday with the editor of Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera Luciano Fontana where the Vatican head expressed his desire to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the near future.
“I asked Cardinal Parolin, after twenty days of war, to send a message to Putin to say that I was willing to go to Moscow,” the Pope said. “We have not yet received an answer, and we are still insisting, even if I fear that Putin cannot and does not want to have this meeting at this time. But how can this brutality not be stopped? Twenty-five years ago we experienced the same thing with Rwanda.”
Pope Francis also condemned the global arms market, calling the Military-Industrial Complex a “scandal” given little attention globally.
His Holiness took a jab at the expansion of NATO over the past 32 years, saying Putin’s anger may have been facilitated by “NATO’s barking at Russia’s door.”
One Chinese official posted a map on Twitter showing how much NATO has encroached on Russia since 1990.
The Pope was hesitant to say if other nations should be arming the Ukrainians, telling Fontana, “I don’t know how to answer – I’m too far away – the question of whether it is right to supply the Ukrainians.”
“The clear thing is that weapons are being tested there,” he continued. “The Russians now know that tanks are of little use and are thinking of other things. This is why wars are waged: to test the weapons we have produced. Few people are fighting this trade, but more should be done.”
Pope Francis noted that in “Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Africa,” there has been one war after another, adding, “There are international interests in every bit of it.”
“In Ukraine, it seems that it was others who created the conflict,” he said. “The only thing that is blamed on the Ukrainians is that they reacted in the Donbas, but we are talking about ten years ago. That argument is old. Of course, they are a proud people.”
This claim is not entirely true as the people living in the Donbas region have been terrorized by the Ukrainian military throughout the last decade and it has yet to stop.
People’s reactions to the interview have been mixed.
Some individuals joked that the Pope will be canceled for being sympathetic to Russia and some were legitimately upset at his remarks, asking him to retract the statements.
How long before we see a regime change at Vatican?
https://t.co/cVQYE0L6TJ
— Adam Zahi (@Eazzayyy) May 3, 2022