Pope Leo XIV welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a private audience at the Vatican on Wednesday, offering to host both Ukrainian and Russian diplomats to negotiate an end to Moscow’s prolonged invasion of the country.
Zelensky celebrated the occasion as a “great honor,” thanking the pope for “the assistance, solidarity, and all efforts that bring us closer to a just peace.” He indicated that his government remained open to the possibility of the Vatican mediating talks with Russia to end the invasion, but expressed little optimism that the Russian government under strongman Vladimir Putin would accept the terms of such an engagement.
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The Vatican Press Office described the pope as stating in his private conversation with Zelensky that both Kyiv and Moscow should pursue a “just and lasting peace,” emphasizing “dialogue as the preferred means of ending hostilities.”
Pope Leo, who was elected as the bishop of Rome in May following the passing of Pope Francis, has prioritized addressing the world’s deadliest conflicts and offering whatever support the Catholic Church can to advance mediation, dialogue, and peace. He has met with Zelensky on several occasions and invited the Ukrainian president to his inaugural Mass – and also spoken with Putin via telephone but has not yet had the opportunity to meet with the Russian leader.
“The pope made an appeal for Russia to make a gesture that would favor peace,” Holy See Press Office chief Matteo Bruni told reporters after the pope’s call with Putin, “emphasizing the importance of dialogue to create positive contacts between the parties and seek solutions to the conflict.”
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin used the call to express “his gratitude to the pontiff for his willingness to facilitate a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.”
During his first Sunday noon blessing, the pope mentioned the Ukraine conflict directly and called for political leaders to reject war.
“I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” he said at the time. “Let everything possible be done to achieve genuine, just and lasting peace as soon as possible.”
The Ukrainian state outlet Ukrinform reported on Wednesday that Zelensky invited the pope to visit Ukraine and expressed gratitude for his leadership in calling for prayers and peace.
“I’m grateful for the meeting and a very substantive conversation with Pope Leo XIV. We value all the support and every prayer for peace in Ukraine,” Zelensky told reporters after his meeting with the pope. “The proposal to hold meetings at the level of leaders at the Vatican remains open and entirely possible, with the goal of stopping Russian aggression and achieving a stable, lasting, and genuine peace.”
“At present, only Moscow continues to reject this proposal,” he continued, “as it has turned down all other peace initiatives. We will continue to strengthen global solidarity so that diplomacy can still succeed.”
“We deeply value the assistance, solidarity, and all efforts that bring us closer to a just peace,” Zelensky said in a message on social media. “We feel your sincere prayers and your desire to help our people.”
The pope did not make public comments to reporters following the meeting, but Vatican News reported that he used the encounter to press for Zelensky to help further “efforts aimed at the release of prisoners and the recovery of children who have been separated from their families.”
Russia has been engaging in hostilities to destabilize Ukraine for over a decade, seizing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 and playing a role in fueling an ongoing civil war in the Donbass region for years. The Russian military was not directly involved in the Donbass conflict or in Ukraine until 2022, when Putin announced a “special operation” to oust Zelensky and install a Russia-friendly leader. As a result of that invasion, thousands of children have been displaced; Kyiv accuses Russia of engaging in mass abductions to take Ukrainian children away from their families and raise them as Russians. Estimates suggest as many as 19,000 children have been abducted in this manner.
Pope Leo’s efforts on Ukraine have focused on the children affected by war. On July 3, the pope visited a children’s summer camp supported by the Catholic charity Caritas Italiana, taking time to speak to Ukrainian children in particular.
“Do not enter into war or conflict. Never promote hatred or envy,” he instructed the children, emphasizing the need for “learning from childhood to respect one another and to see the other as someone like myself.”
Zelensky arrived in Italy on July 9 and has since engaged in meetings with the Italian government in addition to visiting the Vatican. His engagements also included a meeting with White House Special Presidential Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, following comments from President Donald Trump expressing frustration with Putin and approving more weapons shipments to Ukraine.
“He’s killing a lot of people … his soldiers and their soldiers, mostly, and it’s now up to 7,000 a week,” Trump said of Putin during a Cabinet meeting this week.
“We get a lot of bulls— thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told reporters. “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
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