KYIV, (Ukraine): Ukraine on Sunday slammed Pope Francis’s call to negotiate with Russia two years into its invasion, vowing “never” to surrender after the pontiff said Kyiv should “have the courage to raise the white flag”.

The 87-year-old Catholic leader fuelled anger in Kyiv this weekend after he said in an interview that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia, which has seized large swathes of its territory in the offensive.

It is not the first statement by Pope Francis during Moscow’s invasion that has caused outrage in Ukraine. The pontiff has also made statements slammed by Russia.

“Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

He was responding to the Pope’s interview to Swiss broadcaster RTS in which the Catholic leader raised the prospect of surrender — two years after Kyiv has battled Russian forces on its territory.

“I believe that the strongest are those who see the situation, think about the people, and have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate,” Pope Francis said in an interview the Vatican said was conducted in early February.

In a sign of how angered Kyiv was, Ukrainian officials compared the statement to some of the Catholic church collaborating with Nazi Germany in World War II.

“At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century,” Kuleba said, calling on the Holy See to “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past”.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, Andrii Yurash, went further by comparing the Pope’s negotiation suggestion to talking to Adolf Hitler.