The Kremlin has announced it is in support of Pope Francis’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine as it announced a vatican envoy would hold talks with President Vladimir Putin’s government in Moscow.
Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi began a Russia visit on Tuesday, June 27 in a first of such trip since Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
The meeting takes greater significance as high-ranking Catholic clerics are rarely seen in Moscow, which no Pope has ever visited.
Zuppi’s trip comes several weeks after he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.
“We highly value the efforts and initiatives of the Vatican in looking for a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian crisis,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “We welcome them.”
He said Zuppi was due to hold talks with Putin’s foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov.
The Vatican said the purpose of Zuppi’s visit was to “encourage gestures of humanity, which can help promote a solution to the current tragic situation and find ways to achieve a just peace.”
Zuppi’s meeting with Zelensky in early June ended without much progress, but Kyiv said the cleric could help in bringing home Ukrainian prisoners of war and children taken to Russia during the offensive.