ROME/MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- Pope Francis says racism is behind the fact that many Western countries have been more welcoming to Ukrainian refugees than to those from other parts of the world.
Speaking on Italian television station RAI, the head of the Catholic Church said that kind of treatment evidently proved that “we are racists.”
The pontiff stressed that the West also segregates the refugees based on their source of origin.
“The refugees are divided. First-class, second class, by skin color, whether you come from a developed country or a non-developed one,” he said.
“We are racists...and that’s bad,” he added. “There has also been anger over alleged discrimination against African residents of Ukraine at the borders.”
On BBC News, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor David Sakvarelidze said he was very emotional seeing “European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed every day”.
On CBS News, foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata reporting from Kiev said, “This is a relatively civilized and European city where you wouldn’t expect or hope that it is going to happen.”
This is not “Iraq or Afghanistan” – countries that have been suffering endless conflict, he said.
Putting it “bluntly” was an NBC News correspondent, who said, “These are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from neighboring Ukraine...these are Christians, they are white, they are ...um...very similar to people that live in Poland.”

Russia Steps Up Strikes

Russia’s warplanes bombed Lviv and its missiles struck Kyiv and Kharkiv on Saturday, as Moscow followed through on a threat to launch more long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities after its Black Sea Fleet’s flagship was sunk.

In besieged Mariupol, scene of the war’s heaviest fighting, Russian troops pressed recent advances, hoping to seize their first big prize of the war.
Moscow said its planes had struck a tank repair factory in the capital, where an explosion was heard and smoke seen in the southeastern Darnytskyi district. Kyiv’s mayor said at least one person had died and medics were fighting to save others.
Ukraine’s military said Russian warplanes that took off from Belarus had also fired missiles at the Lviv region near the Polish border, where four cruise missiles were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.
The governor of Kharkiv province in the east said at least one person had died and 18 were injured in a missile strike. In Mykolaiv, a city close to the southern front, Russia said it had struck a military vehicle repair factory.
The attacks followed Russia’s announcement on Friday that it would intensify long-range strikes in retaliation for unspecified acts of “sabotage” and “terrorism”, hours after it confirmed the sinking of its Black Sea flagship, the Moskva.
Kyiv and Washington say the ship was hit by Ukrainian missiles. Moscow says it sank after a fire.
Ukraine said its troops are still holding out in the ruins of Mariupol, where the defense is concentrated around Azovstal, another huge steel works that has yet to yield.
If Mariupol falls it would be Russia’s biggest prize of the war so far. It is the main port of the Donbas, a region of two provinces in the southeast which Moscow demands be fully ceded to separatists.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said about 2,500-3,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed so far, compared to up to 20,000 Russian troops.
Ukraine says civilian deaths are impossible to count, estimating tens of thousands have been killed in Mariupol alone.
Overall, around a quarter of Ukrainians have been driven from their homes, including a tenth of the population that has fled abroad.