Just a few days after speaking by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pope Leo XIV spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.
The conversation took place over the phone, and the topics were the same as those discussed with Putin while Pope Leo XIV was still hospitalized: the serious situation in Oleshky, in the Kherson region, and the call for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds.
According to the Vatican, the pope asked Zelensky for the same thing he asked Putin: cooperation between the parties to allow humanitarian aid to enter and the civilian population to be evacuated.
The Holy See is committed to promoting dialogue and peace, and it has been conveying that message since hostilities between Russia and Ukraine resumed in February 2022.
This isn’t the first conversation between the pope and the Ukrainian leader during the papacy of Pope Leo XIV. There have been several phone calls between the two and they met on the very day of the Mass marking the beginning of the pontificate, and then again two months later at Castel Gandolfo. There have been two phone calls with Putin.
The Vatican has offered to mediate between the parties and is calling for peace, in the hope that it will be achieved in the near future.
