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The Pope used his weekly address to liken the Ukraine conflict to the devastating famine inflicted by Soviet leader Josef Stalin 90 years ago.
Ukraine war akin to Stalin genocide: Pope
Pope Francis says that Ukrainians were suffering today from the “martyrdom of aggression” and compared Russia’s war in Ukraine to the “terrible genocide” of the 1930s, when Soviet leader Josef Stalin inflicted famine on the country.
Francis, speaking to thousands of people in St Peter’s Square in his weekly general audience, mentioned the “Holodomor”, or death by starvation, in which millions of Ukrainians died.
“This Saturday marks the anniversary of the terrible genocide of the Holodomor, the extermination by famine of 1932-33 that was artificially caused by Stalin,” he said.
“Let us pray for the victims of this genocide and let us pray for so many Ukrainians – children, women, elderly – who are today suffering the martyrdom of aggression,” he said.
