Vatican apologized for the words of the Pope of Roman about the cruelty of Chechens and Buryats in the war

Russia received official apologies from the Vatican’s Secretary of State after the statement of the Pope about the cruelty of Chechens and Buryats in the war against Ukraine. This was written by the TASS State Agency with reference to the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Maria Zakharov.

The letter from the Secretary of State Pietro Passoli says that "the Holy Thron is deeply respected by all the peoples of Russia, their dignity, faith and culture, as well as to other countries and peoples of the world." Zakharova said that this incident is considered exhausted.

Papier Pope Francis in an interview with American, speaking of the war in Ukraine, called Chechens and Buryats "the most brutal part of the Russian troops in Ukraine," noting that "if there are martyrs, there should be those who torment them."

After that, Anzor Maskhadov, the son of the murdered president of the unrecognized Chechen Republic, Ichkeria Aslan Maskhadov, addressed the pontiff. He recalled the repressions of the Russian state in relation to the Chechen people, the two wars in the republic and violations of human rights under the current leadership. He assigned the responsibility for the participation of the residents of Chechnya in the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the "dictatorship controlled by [President Vladimir] Putin and his puppet [Ramzan] Kadyrov." Maskhadov pointed out that there is no freedom of speech and opinions in the republic, and that the inhabitants of the republic "continue to kidnap, torture and kill."

The head of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, called the Vatican statement "a strong act", made against the backdrop of "information hysteria" against Russia in the West. “Dad respect,” wrote Tsydenov.

• Earlier, in response to the words of the pontiff, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that the statement of Francis about Chechens and Buryats was a "prohibitive perversion of truth."
• The head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, commenting on the words of the Pope, said that he became "a victim of the propaganda and perseverance of foreign media."
• The Chechen human rights activist Abubakar Yangulbaev also reacted to the words of Francis who had also reacted to Russia because of the persecution. In particular, he stated that “not the Chechens and the Buryats began the war in Ukraine,” and that Chechnya, according to his assessment, was the “colonized republic”, which suffered from Russia.
• In May of this year, Pope Francis said that he was talking with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill about the war in Ukraine. According to Francis, the conversation lasted about 40 minutes in Zoom. For the first 20 minutes, the Patriarch with paper in his hands read to him "all the reasons justifying the invasion of Russia" in Ukraine. The pontiff, in turn, said that he and Cyril "should look for the path to the world." “The Patriarch cannot turn into the Putin’s altar,” the pope retold Roman content of the conversation.
• In this regard, the department of external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate on May 4 distributed a comment on May 4 states that Francis "chose incorrect tonality to convey the content of this conversation."