Ukrainian society did not accept the idea of Pope Francis when two people symbolically carried the Ukrainian and Russian flags together in the Vatican.
Source: The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy
“I will explain to you how our society reacts to this: when the Pope prays for Ukraine, we are always grateful to him. When he showed by an example of two people carrying Ukrainian and Russian flags that there should be friendship, we could not accept it.”
He explained this by the fact that the Russian flag is a symbol of the invaders in Ukraine now.
“There has been a mental split, this is no longer the flag that is raised in competitions, in the Olympics. Today it is the flag with which they killed us. And we have this association. It is difficult to understand when it does not directly concern you.”
Uaposition memo: On Good Friday, April 15, on one of the sections of the traditional Way of the Cross in Rome, a Ukrainian and a Russian woman held the cross, which was supposed to symbolize the reconciliation of the two nations.
