Pope calls for Easter truce in Ukraine

Pope Francis at the Palm Sunday mass at the Vatican. Pic/AFP

Pope Francis called for an Easter truce in Ukraine and condemned the "folly of war" as he led Palm Sunday services in St. Peter's Square before an audience of tens of thousands of people.

He urged negotiations to find a solution to the conflict. In an apparent reference to Russia, he said, "What kind of victory would be one that plants a flag on a heap of rubble?"

"Put the weapons down! Let An Easter truce start. But not to rearm and resume combat but a truce to reach peace through real negotiations open to some sacrifices for the good of the people," Francis said.

Francis earlier evoked the horrors of war in his homily, speaking of "mothers who mourn the unjust death of husbands and sons...refugees who flee from bombs with children in their arms...young people deprived of a future....soldiers sent to kill their brothers and sisters."

Moscow dubs the action it took a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour. Francis has already rejected that terminology, calling it a war.

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