Ukraine’s foreign minister welcomes Holy See’s offer of peace negotiations, but ‘time for it has not come yet’ | CPT PPP Coverage

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However, Kuleba added that “picking an issue is the first step, while the second step is how you address the issue,” adding that “mistakes” needed to be avoided.

Among such “mistakes,” according to Kuleba, are the notion of a brotherhood between Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian people. 

“We are not brothers and if you insist on the concept you are misled,” the Ukrainian minister told journalists since Russians “came to Kyiv to rape, to violate all the laws of God on the land of Ukraine.”

Kuleba also said hat one cannot be “neutral in public comments” and should “always remember that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim of the aggression.” 

Any attempt at making both sides somehow evenly responsible created “a completely wrong message,” the minister warned.

In his Oct. 2 Angelus, Pope Francis appealed to Russia’s President Vladmir Putin to stop the war, and to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be seriously open to the pope’s proposal. 

Kuleba explained why he was somewhat critical of such appeals by Pope Francis: While saying President Putin should stop the war made  “perfect sense,” calling on President Zelenskyy to be open to serious peace proposals made it sound like Zelenskyy was “not open to peace.”

In other words, Kuleba added, the pope’s words wrongly “create the impression that both sides are guilty: one is guilty because of the attack, and the other is guilty because [it is] not open to peace proposals.”

Ukraine’s Foreign minister called on journalists to be pay attention when writing about a “serious peace proposal” being “based on the territorial integrity of Ukraine”, including Crimea. 

“Every time you write or read or say that Ukraine insists on the restoration of Crimea, you send a message that Crimea is a special case. But for us and international law, there is no difference between [the towns of] Sebastopol and Kherson, Yalta and Donetsk.”

Speaking about the role religion can play in helping to reconstruct the country, the Ukrainian foreign minister said that the “Russian aggression caused big fractures” among religions. He also pointed to  differences in viewpoints between Muslims in Russia and in Ukraine, and Russian and Ukrainian Jews.

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Kuleba said that the “first and foremost expectation from confessions is to console people, to help them spiritually.” Most people turned to God “only in times of hardship,” he added.

“When everything is fine, you forget about God. Now, there is a higher demand for spiritual help, to be consoled by the Church.”

Kuleba also spoke to CNA about sanctions imposed on Dec.1 against some Orthodox clerics and moves to legislate against Russian influence through religious means. 

The Ukrainian government will draw up a law banning churches affiliated with Russia under moves described by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as necessary to prevent Moscow being able to “weaken Ukraine from within,” according to Reuters.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council told the government to draft the law following a series of raids on parishes that Kyiv said might be taking orders from Moscow.