More Russian government, religious officials condemn Pope's remarks on Chechens, Buryats in Ukraine (AP)

In an interview with the Jesuit periodical America, Pope Francis said that he has received “much information about the cruelty of the troops” in Ukraine, and that “generally, the cruelest are perhaps those who are of Russia but are not of the Russian tradition, such as the Chechens, the Buryats and so on.”

Maria Zakharova, director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, described the Pope’s remarks as “perversion on a level I can’t even name.”

Alexander Avdeev, Russia’s ambassador to the Holy See, has lodged a formal protest with the Vatican. “I expressed indignation at such insinuations and noted that nothing can shake the cohesion and unity of the multinational Russian people,” he said.

Konstantin Kosachev (the chairman of the Russian senate’s foreign relations committee) also condemned the remarks, as did the leader of Russia’s Buddhists. (The Buryat people are primarily Buddhist.)