‘We must stop now’ says Vatican amid Ukraine escalation

On 19 November, marking 1,000 days since Russian forces began the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Cardinal Parolin said that “this war risks dragging us into a nuclear confrontation, a descent into the abyss”.

The Vatican’s secretary of state warned that the trajectory of the war in Ukraine was “deeply troubling” after the US and the UK authorities permitted Kyiv to use Nato-supplied long-range missiles on Russian territory, and Moscow escalated its strikes in response.

“I echo the thoughts and concerns of the Holy Father: we must stop now, while there is still time. This escalation could spiral out of control, with consequences no one can foresee,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

This followed President Vladimir Putin’s authorisation of a strike on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro using a new model of an intermediate-range ballistic missile that can carry nuclear warheads. Shortly beforehand, Putin had updated Russia’s nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold to provoke a potential nuclear strike.

Parolin had already warned last week of the rising threat of nuclear war. On 18 November, marking 1,000 days since Russian forces began the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he said that “this war risks dragging us into a nuclear confrontation, a descent into the abyss”.

“The Holy See is trying to do all it can, maintaining channels of dialogue open with everyone, but it feels as though the clock of history has been turned back,” Parolin explained. “Diplomatic efforts, patient dialogue, and creative negotiation seem to have vanished as relics of the past.”

He said a truce should be “primarily made possible by Russia, which initiated the conflict and should cease its aggression”.

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The end game in Ukraine

Metropolitan Epiphany, the head of the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, marked 1,000 days since the Russian invasion, with an appeal to Ukrainians to be spiritually strong against the battle with the “modern antichrist”. Ukrainians “won’t be persuaded to surrender and give up their independent future”, he said.

Western support for Ukraine has been thrown into doubt by President Donald Trump’s imminent return to power in the US, while Putin has deployed thousands of allied North Korean troops to fight Ukrainian forces occupying the Kursk region.

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, patriarch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics, appealed to the world not to forget about Ukraine. “Continue to stand by us, even in silence,” he told Vatican News. In his message to his Church marking 1,000 days since the invasion, he said these had also been “days of hope”.

“We are a people who rely on the power of the resurrected saviour and bear witness to this power daily in our personal history,” he said. “That is why we now declare to the whole world: Ukraine stands, fights, and prays!”

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