Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, has given an interview about the ongoing conflict, criticising “preventive wars” and the “truly worrying” erosion of international law.

“If states were to be recognised as having a right to ‘preventive war’, according to their own criteria and without a supranational legal framework, the whole world would risk being set ablaze,” the cardinal said.

He added: “The force of law has been replaced by the law of force, with the conviction that peace can arise only after the enemy has been annihilated.”