Vatican: Criticism from the Ukrainian ambassador to the Pope for his references to Daria Dugina

Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican today criticized Pope Francis for calling her an innocent victim of war when referring to Daria Dugina, daughter of prominent Russian ultranationalist Alexander Dugin, who was killed by a car bomb near Moscow.

It is highly unusual for ambassadors to the Vatican to publicly criticize the Pope.

“The innocent pay for the war,” the pope said earlier during today’s routine audience of the faithful held every Wednesday, in a sentence where he said that “this poor girl was blown up by a bomb that had been planted under the seat of a car in Moscow”.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, Andriy Yuras, tweeted that the pope’s words were “disappointing.”

“How can one of the ideologues of (Russian) imperialism be considered an innocent victim? He was killed by the Russians.”

Francis called the war “madness.” He said Ukrainian and Russian children had been killed and “being an orphan knows no nationality”.

In his tweet, Yuras wrote: “we cannot speak with the same accusations about the aggressor and the victim, the rapist and the raped.”

The Vatican did not immediately respond to Jura’s comments.

Alexander Dugin, Daria’s father, has been an advocate for years of uniting Russian-speaking and other territories into a new Russian empire that would include Ukraine.

Daria Dugina widely supported her father’s views and appeared on Russian state television supporting Russia’s military action in Ukraine.

Pope Francis was speaking today, August 24, the day Ukrainians celebrate their independence from Soviet rule in 1991 and exactly six months since Russian forces invaded.

In an interview with Reuters last month, Francis said he wants to visit Kyiv, but also wants to go to Moscow first, to promote peace.