Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg flatly rejected the Pope’s suggestion that Ukraine should show the “courage of the white flag” and negotiate for a peace deal with Vladimir Putin.
Asked about the controversial remark, Mr Stoltenberg stressed: “It’s not the time to talk about surrender by the Ukrainians.”
Britain gave its whole-hearted support to Ukraine to fight Putin’s invasion after the Pope’s intervention.
Security minister Tom Tugendhat stressed that the UK “stands very firmly with Ukraine” to defend itself against Putin’s war which has entered its third year.
Ukraine on Sunday rebuffed Pope Francis’s call to negotiate an end to the war with Russia, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the Pontiff was engaging in “virtual mediation” and his foreign minister saying Kyiv would never capitulate.
Mr Tugendhat declined to comment directly on the Pope’s comments but was clear where the UK stood.
He told GB News: “I’m not going to comment on the Pope’s views on this.
“I’m just going to say ‘we stand very firmly with Ukraine and its right to defend itself, its right to defend its citizens against the Russians who have sadly murdered and brutalised a country over the last two years’.”
Britain has led the West in arming Ukraine, first with anti-tank weapons, then Challenger tanks and also long range Storm Shadow missiles.
It is urging other allies to do more to support Kyiv.
Pope Francis sparked controversy by saying that when things were going badly for a party to a conflict one had to show the “courage of the white flag” and negotiate.
The Pontiff’s interview was believed to be the first time that he has used terms like “white flag” or “defeated” in discussing the Ukraine war, though he has referred in the past to the need for talks.
Mr Zelensky made no direct reference to the Pope or his comments but mentioned religious figures helping inside Ukraine.
“They support us with prayer, with their discussion and with deeds. This is indeed what a church with the people is,” Ukraine’s president said in his nightly video address.
“Not 2,500 km away, somewhere, virtual mediation between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, writing on the X messaging platform, said that the strong person in any dispute “stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations’”.
“Our flag is a yellow and blue one,” Kuleba wrote in English, referring to the Ukrainian national flag. “This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.”
Mr Kuleba also pointed to allegations that Pope Pius XII failed to act against the Nazis in Germany in World War Two.
“I urge (the Vatican) to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives,” he wrote.
That was a reference to longstanding arguments that Pius took no action despite evidence that emerged during the war of the extent of the Holocaust.
A letter made public last year from the Vatican archives appeared to show that Pius was made aware of details of Nazi actions to exterminate Jews as early as 1942.
Supporters of Pius say he worked behind the scenes to help Jews and did not speak out in order to prevent worsening the situation for Catholics in Nazi-occupied Europe.
His critics say he lacked the courage to speak out on information he had despite pleas from Allied powers fighting Germany.
The head of Ukraine’s five million-strong Eastern Rite Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, also rejected the pope’s comments.
“Ukraine is wounded, but not conquered! Ukraine is exhausted, but it stands and will stand!” the church’s website quoted Shevchuk as saying in New York.
“Believe me, no one has any idea of ââsurrendering.”
Mr Zelensky has called for the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders. The Kremlin rules out engaging in talks on terms set by Kyiv.
Western officials believe Putin is still seeking to capture the bulk, if not the whole, of Ukraine.
The Pope has upset Ukrainian officials several times in the war, including his call last year to Russian youth to take pride as heirs of tsars like Peter the Great, held up by Putin as an example to justify his actions in Ukraine.
European nations supporting Ukraine in its efforts to evict Russian troops denounced the Pope’s latest comments.
“How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine?” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, also writing on X, said: “One must not capitulate in face of evil, one must fight it and defeat it, so that the evil raises the white flag and capitulates.”
But Russia said Pope Francis’s call for talks with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine was a request to Kyiv’s Western allies to abandon their ambition to defeat Russia, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported.
“The way I see it, the Pope is asking the West to put aside its ambitions and admit that it was wrong,” it quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin declined on Monday to comment on a media report which said that Nikolai Yevmenov, the head of the Russian Navy, had been axed.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he did not comment on decrees which were classified.
The Izvestia newspaper said that Alexander Moiseyev, who previously served as commander of Russia's Northern Fleet, had reportedly been appointed as acting Navy chief.
Putin’s Black Sea Fleet has suffered a series of losses and it has been forced to withdraw some ships from Crimea.
The flagship of the fleet, the warship Moskva, was sunk in spring 2022 and Ukraine is now using sea drones to successfully target other vessels.
