VATICAN CITY, April 9 (Reuters) – Pope Francis appeared to ask Russians to seek the truth about their country’s invasion of Ukraine in his Easter message to the world on Sunday and appealed for dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians following recent violence.
“On this day, Lord, we entrust to you the city of Jerusalem, the first witness of your resurrection. I express deep worry over the attacks of these last few days that threaten the hoped-for climate of trust and reciprocal respect, needed to resume the dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, so that peace may reign in the Holy City and in the entire region,” he said.
A carpet of 38,000 flowers donated by the Netherlands bedecked the square for the most important and joyous date in the Church’s liturgical calendar – commemorating the day Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.
Russia has already accused the West of using its civilian space infrastructure to support the operations of the Ukrainian troops, including for combat strikes, and detecting the locations of Vladimir Putin’s army and its movements.
On Sunday he asked God to “comfort the wounded and all those who have lost loved ones because of the war, and grant that prisoners may return safe and sound to their families. Open the hearts of the entire international community to strive to end this war and all conflict and bloodshed in our world.”
And Dean Wells was grabbing attention for another reason on Saturday, as he surrounded himself with twerking ladies at a party held by tobacco tycoon Travers ‘Candyman’ Beynon at the Candyshop mansion in Queensland.
Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer from a Ukrainian NGO called Regional Centre for Human Rights, told the briefing they were collecting evidence to build a case that Russian officials deliberately prevented return of the Ukrainian children back to their country.
The three children said they had been separated from their parents who were pressured by Russian authorities to send their children to Russian summer camps for what was billed as two weeks, from occupied parts of Kherson and Kharkiv regions.
But the traditional pomp and sacred singing then gave way to modern realities. Francis later went up to the central balcony of St.
Peter’s Basilica to deliver his twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message and blessing, addressing a crowd the Vatican estimated at about 100,000.
There, from the same spot where he first appeared to the world as pope on the night of his election in 2013, he spoke of “the darkness and the gloom in which, all too often, our world finds itself enveloped”, and prayed to God for peace.
In his message Francis also mentioned instability in Lebanon, expressed the hope that the “martyred Rohingya people” of Myanmar “may encounter justice”, and called for more aid for the victims of earthquakes in February that killed nearly 56,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
Boris Johnson suggested the growingly desperate leader – who has yet to make any significant inroads in Ukraine – is being ‘irrational’, while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte described him as ‘totally paranoid’.
KYIV, April 8 (Reuters) – More than 30 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine this week after a long operation to bring them back from Russia, where they had been taken from occupied areas during the war, a humanitarian group said on Saturday.
Video posted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shows military ambulances driving through the Belarusian city of Homel, with employees at the region’s clinical hospital alleging more than 2,500 bodies have been shipped back to Russia
The International Criminal Court last month issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of abducting children from Ukraine.
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Meanwhile, an aide to jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny today suggested Putin had massively miscalculated, predicting the ‘unpopular’ war and its economic consequences would lead to the ‘demise’ of his regime within five years.
Between the Mass and his reading of the message, Francis, appearing in fine form, was driven in a popemobile around the square and down the main boulevard leading to the River Tiber so more people could see him.
“Now the fifth rescue mission is nearing its completion. It was special regarding the number of children we managed to return and also because of its complexity,” said Mykola Kuleba, the founder of the Save Ukraine humanitarian organisation.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, Francis has at least twice a week referred to Ukraine and its people as being “martyred” and has used words such as aggression and atrocities to describe Russia’s actions.