Holy Week dispute and the sinking of the Moskva
A look back at the public mood in the days before 18 April 2022, from a contested Vatican procession plan to a warship lost in the Black Sea.
What was weighing on Ukrainians as 18 April 2022 arrived? The answer ran from church ceremony to naval warfare, and from Kyiv to Washington.
On 15 April, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Ukraine's ambassador to the Vatican and archbishop of Kyiv, condemned a Vatican plan for a Good Friday procession in which a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman would carry the cross together. He objected to what was presented as a gesture of reconciliation while Ukraine was still suffering from a war started by Russia.
A warship lost at sea
The Black Sea had supplied the biggest news of the preceding days. On 13 April, Ukraine said it had struck the Russian cruiser Moskva with two Neptune cruise missiles, a claim reported by Ukrainian officials and by the US Department of Defense. Russia's Ministry of Defence gave a different account, according to Russian state media: the crew had been evacuated after a fire on board detonated ammunition and seriously damaged the vessel. Both sides agreed the ship had caught fire.
On 14 April, the Moskva sank. Russia's navy had tried to tow the damaged ship to Sevastopol, but it went down before reaching port. It was described as the largest warship sunk in combat since the Second World War, and as a major victory for Ukraine. Further information then emerged that the Moskva had been among the ships involved in the attack on Snake Island on 25 February.
Protest in Washington
The same day, protesters in the United States projected the Ukrainian flag onto the wall of the Russian embassy in Washington. The embassy responded with floodlights, trying to wash out the image.
Taken together, these episodes show a country at war debating how it should be represented abroad, whether in a religious rite or on an embassy wall, while a naval success at sea shaped the mood going into 18 April 2022.
