Vatican City / Kyiv - In an interview with Vatican Media six months since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, calls the conflict "a global threat to humanity" and expresses gratitude to Pope Francis for his closeness.
"Thank you" are the words repeated several times by the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halyč.
That gratitude he expresses to Pope Francis for alerting the world - as the war has waged on for exactly six months - to the 'global threat' that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine represents.
Another thank you he extends to all the priests, monks, and bishops who have not abandoned people under the constant threat of bombardment. He also conveys further appreciation to Europe, which has opened its doors to Ukrainian refugees, sometimes welcoming them into their own families.
Speaking on the phone with Vatican Media, through which he offers blessings from Kyiv, Major Archbishop Shevchuk calls for international solidarity. Lifting his gaze to the transcendental dimension of what the Pope has stigmatised as barbarity, he affirms that war is a "mystery of evil... beyond all human rule and control, even beyond that of those who have provoked it."
"Only God," he says, "can open the paths to build peace in the midst of this war."
On the warfront
As Ukraine prepared to mark both its independence from Soviet-rule in 1991 and the six months since Russian troops invaded, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pledged that any Russian attacks in or around the date would provoke a powerful response.
On the battlefields, Russian forces carried out artillery and rocket strikes in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine, where fighting has taken place near Europe's largest nuclear power plant, Ukraine's military said. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for strikes on the plant.
Meanwhile leaders of dozens of countries and international organisations were taking part in the so-called Crimea Platform - most of them by video - in solidarity with Ukraine on the six-month anniversary of the invasion.
Fears of intensified Russian attacks followed the killing of Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian ultra-nationalist, in a car bombing near Moscow on Saturday. Moscow blamed the killing on Ukrainian agents, a charge Kyiv denies.
-VN/Reuters