Pope Leo XIV has sent his special envoy to Moscow, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, for talks on Ukraine. Zuppi told TASS that he is flying out on September 27 and that meetings with representatives of the Russian authorities are scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
According to Zuppi, the trip will be part of the humanitarian mission that Pope Francis began. He said he had been tasked with supporting the parties’ efforts to address issues involving children taken out of combat zones, prisoner exchanges, and civil matters arising from the conflict.
The special envoy also noted that the Vatican is considering appeals on humanitarian issues from both the Ukrainian and Russian sides. He added that dialogue with Moscow has already begun and that the Vatican wants to develop it further.
In May 2023, Pope Francis appointed Zuppi as his special envoy to seek ways to peace in Ukraine. Before this trip, he had already been to Moscow twice — in June 2023 and in October 2024.
At the end of August, the Vatican’s head of diplomacy, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, came to Moscow for the first time since the start of the full-scale war. During the four-day visit, he met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk.
Lavrov then said that since their last meeting in 2021, “a great deal has happened in the world, to put it very mildly”, and stated that Moscow and the Vatican had managed to preserve a “trust-based, mutually respectful dialogue”. Leo XIV also said in August that “the time has come to stop the spiral of violence and make room for diplomacy and dialogue, paving the way to peace”.
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