Pope Francis has made a statement on the Ukraine war that has sparked fury among many of Kyiv’s supporters. Asked by a Swiss television interviewer whether the Ukraine should ‘raise the white flag’ Francis replied, ‘When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate,’ adding that he believed that ‘the stronger one is the one who… thinks of the people, who has the courage of the white flag.’

After a storm of criticism, the Vatican press service put out a clarification. ‘Pope Francis is not asking Ukraine to surrender but rather calling for a ceasefire and the courage of negotiation,’ insisted Vatican spokesman office Matteo Bruni, reminding people that Francis had recently spoken of his ‘deep affection for the martyred Ukrainian people’ and called for a ‘diplomatic solution in search of a just and lasting peace.’

Unfortunately, Francis’s conflation of negotiation and surrender is profoundly unhelpful. And by framing his words in the context of Ukraine’s ‘defeat’ is specially offensive and counter-productive. ‘The biggest heartbreak of this decade is progressive Polish Catholics finding out, to their utter horror, that the “liberal hope for a renewal of the Church” Pope Francis is the Kremlin’s useful idiot,’ wrote Jakub Jaraczewski of Democracy Reporting International on X. Poland’s foreign minister Radek Sikorsky more respectfully enquired why His Holiness had not directed his remarks at Russia instead of Ukraine.

Sikorsky is entirely correct – Francis was wrong to suggest that the onus was on the Ukrainians to give up on their defence and not on the Kremlin to cease and desist their aggression. Yet the Pope has raised a crucial question: the Ukraine war will end, inevitably, with some kind of negotiation. The only alternative to negotiation would be a total defeat of Russia in the same way that Germany and Japan were totally defeated and then occupied in 1945.