After Putin, Leo XIV also telephones Zelensky. The aim: to secure a truce

The Pope telephoned Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday. He also asked him to do everything possible to resolve the situation in Oleshky, the town besieged by the Russians from which it is impossible to escape. Earlier, on Friday, he had telephoned Vladimir Putin, and it is uncertain what thoughts crossed the minds of senior officials in the Trump administration when they learnt that the Pope had telephoned the Russian president, asking him to allow the thousand or so inhabitants remaining in Oleshky to leave in search of water, food and shelter. 

By a strange – or perhaps not so strange – coincidence, whilst Trump was postponing the sanctions against Moscow provided for under the Graham Act and passed with bipartisan support, in the name of his perennial sympathy for Putin, the Pope restored the relationship between aggressor and victim to its natural and correct order. Just as in June 2025, when he asked the Russian president to ‘promote peace’, this time he asked him to ease the pressure on the city in the Donbas, which is caught in the grip of troops sent by the Kremlin.

Leone XIV chose to mention Putin first, rather than Zelensky. The interview – one of the few – that Robert Prevost gave in 2022, two months after the invasion, to a Peruvian television channel, remains relevant. At the time, he was Bishop of Chiclayo and, responding to a question about the conflict that had just erupted, he said: “From my point of view, this is a genuine imperialist invasion in which Russia seeks to conquer territory for reasons of power and to secure advantages for itself, due to Ukraine’s strategic position, but also because of its great historical and cultural value, and its importance in terms of production.” Not only that, he added that “it has already been proven that crimes against humanity are being committed”.

However, the then Monsignor Prevost went further, as he focused on the media campaign which was already tending, in certain quarters (including ecclesiastical ones), to argue that, ultimately, Moscow had been provoked – perhaps by NATO, which had moved too close to its borders, and by the usual Westerners driven by anti-Russian sentiment. No, “we must be very clear”, said the future Pope, because “some politicians, even in our own country, do not want to acknowledge the horrors of this war and the evil that Russia is committing in Ukraine”. The politicians in question were Peruvian, but the category could easily have been – and can still be – extended: there is no shortage of examples, even today. Precisely on the subject of the ‘provocations’ by the Atlantic Alliance – ‘NATO barking at Russia’s borders’, for example – once elected Pope, he would have said that ‘NATO has not started any war’ (an off-the-cuff remark made to journalists a year ago, as he was leaving Castel Gandolfo).

The initiative to telephone Vladimir Putin came from the Pope, confirmed the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, adding: “I hope that, in response to a request from the Holy Father, President Putin will agree to implement what the Pope has asked of him. I think he will.” In reality, whilst hinting at a vague willingness to seek solutions, the Kremlin – according to a report by the Interfax news agency – responded by blaming the government in Kyiv for the situation in Oleshky. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Andrii Sybiha, thanked Pope Leo XIV “for his appeal to Putin”, because “people need action, a way out. And they need it now”.

In his message released yesterday morning, the Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Kyiv, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, thanked “the Lord God and the Ukrainian Armed Forces for the fact that, once again this week, we have held out and are still alive. It is our duty to bring the truth about Ukraine into the hearts and consciences of people of good will throughout the world”. What is distressing, observed the head and father of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, “is that these crimes against humanity have taken place precisely at the moment when the President of the United States announced a so-called energy truce between Russia and Ukraine. At the same time, neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian side has confirmed that such an agreement has been reached. For this reason, it is essential for us Christians today to understand that even peace negotiations aimed at ending the conflict must adhere to certain moral principles. Agreements lacking a moral foundation, in which the value of energy resources is prioritised over human life, are doomed to failure. When we speak of energy, I urge you all to remember: we are talking about real people, about nurseries, schools and hospitals.”

In his last Angelus before being admitted to hospital, Leone had addressed a special message to Kyiv: “The war in war-torn Ukraine continues to cause suffering far beyond its borders, especially in the poorest countries, where so many people depend on grain imports. I make a heartfelt appeal to the parties to the conflict to allow the safe transport of grain across the Black Sea. The daily bread of millions of people must not be held hostage by the war.”