Pope Francis on Sunday condemned the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine yet again, describing Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s decision to invade the eastern European country as a “macabre regression of humanity.”

Speaking after the recitation of the Regina Coeli prayer dedicated to Virgin Mary on Sunday, the 85-year-old said, “I suffer and weep, thinking of the suffering of the Ukrainian people, and in particular of the weakest, the elderly and children. There are even terrible reports of children being expelled and deported.”

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The Pope also said that his thoughts “go immediately to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, ‘Mary’s city’,” which has been under Russian siege for weeks now, and decried Russian troops who “barbarously bombed and destroyed” the city.

Expressing his hopes for the evacuation of civilians, the Pope also urged both sides to come to terms to set up “safe humanitarian corridors” for the hundreds trapped at the Azovstal steel plant, which has become one of the last bastions of Ukrainian resistance in the southern port city of Mariupol.

Pope Francis’ comments came as evacuation operations in Mariupol got underway on Sunday. However, after a rare moment of quiet that allowed for the evacuation of around 100 civilians from Azovstal, reports suggested that Russian troops had reopened fire on the besieged steel plant on Sunday night.

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“The occupiers began firing on Azovstal again as soon as the evacuation of some Ukrainians was completed,” the commander of the 12th brigade of the National Guard Denis Schlega told Ukrainian television, adding that the attackers were using “all kinds of weapons.”

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, Moscow’s troops have battered Mariupol using artillery and rocket strikes, killing hundreds, if not thousands of civilians in the process.