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Pope Francis and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky during their meeting at the Vatican in Rome, Italy on Saturday. Photo: Vatican Media Handout / EPA-EFE

World Europe

Volodymyr Zelensky discusses Ukraine war with Pope Francis at the Vatican

In a written statement, the Vatican said the two men spoke about Ukraine’s ‘humanitarian and political situation provoked by the war going on’
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who met Zelensky earlier in the day, renewed her pledge to champion Ukraine’s EU ambitions

Ukraine war

Agencies

Published: 1:00am, 14 May 2023

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held talks with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Saturday, saying it was a great honour to meet the pontiff, who has previously offered to do what he can to try to end the war launched by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago.

Zelensky held his hand on his heart as the pope, using a cane, came to greet him before ushering the Ukrainian into a papal studio near the Vatican’s audience call. “Thank you for your visit,’’ Francis said, as their 40-minute-long meeting began.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at Chigi Palace in Rome, Italy on Saturday. Photo: EPA-EFE

In a written statement, the Vatican said the two men spoke about Ukraine’s “humanitarian and political situation provoked by the war going on.’’

“The pope assured his constant prayer, paid witness to by his many public appeals and by his continued invoking of the Lord for peace, since February of last year,’’ the Vatican said, a reference to the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 by Russia’s military.

“Both agreed on the need to continue humanitarian efforts” to help the population. “The pope underlined in particular the urgent need for ‘humanitarian gestures’ toward the most fragile persons, innocent victims of the conflict,” the statement said.

Last month, Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, met Francis at the Vatican and said he asked the pontiff to help Ukraine get back children illegally taken to Russia during the invasion.

Saturday’s communique from the Vatican made no mention of that.

When asked in a television interview on the Italian channel Rai 1 about the possibility of Pope Francis mediating in the Ukraine war, Zelensky said: “With all due respect to the pope, the thing is that we don’t need mediators between Ukraine and the aggressor who has occupied our territories, but an action plan for a just peace in Ukraine.”

Zelensky said the past has shown that it is not possible to negotiate with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. “No country in the world can do that,” Zelensky said.

In a video address from Rome, Zelensky said he had also spoken to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday and urged him to help implement Kyiv’s peace plan to end the war with Russia.

Zelensky made the remarks a day after Ramaphosa spoke to Putin. South Africa has positioned itself as neutral in the conflict.

Ahead of Zelensky’s arrival in late afternoon, police moved tourists to one side of St Peter’s Square so the Ukrainian president’s motorcade could speed across the vast cobblestone space.

Earlier in the day, Zelensky met Italian officials after his morning flight to Rome. He received pledges of both open-ended military and financial support as well as stronger backing for Ukraine’s cherished aim to join the European Union.

“The message is clear and simple,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said, flanked by Zelensky as the two briefed reporters after their meeting at her office, which lasted more than an hour. “The future of Ukraine is a future of peace and freedom. And it’s the future of Europe, a future of peace and freedom, for which there are no other possible solutions.”

Meloni, who had met Zelensky in Ukraine in February, just ahead of the anniversary of the invasion, renewed her pledge to champion Ukraine’s EU ambitions, saying Ukraine was moving ahead with required reforms despite the war.

The premier, who staunchly backs military aid for Ukraine, said Italy would back the country “360 degrees for all the time necessary and beyond.”

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But while her far-right Brothers of Italy party champions the principle of national sovereignty, Meloni has had to contend with leaders of two coalition partners who for years have openly professed their admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Coalition ally Silvio Berlusconi, a former premier, has boasted of his friendship with Putin, while another government ally, League leader Matteo Salvini, has questioned the value of economic sanctions against Russia.

Zelensky began his official meetings by calling on Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the presidential Quirinale Palace.

“We are fully at your side,″ Mattarella told Zelensky as he welcomed him. Later, after their meeting, presidential palace sources said Mattarella assured his guest that Italy would continue supporting Ukraine militarily and financially, as well as with reconstruction and humanitarian aid, in both the short and long term.

Since the war began, Italy has furnished about €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) in military and financial aid, as well as humanitarian help.

Zelensky arrived on Sunday for his first visit to Germany since Russia’s invasion, with Berlin offering an emphatic show of support in the form of a new military package worth €2.7 billion.

“Already in Berlin,” he wrote on Twitter. “Weapons. Powerful package. Air defense. Reconstruction. EU. NATO. Security.”

Italian state radio reported that as part of protective measures, a no-fly zone was ordered for the skies over Rome and police sharpshooters were strategically placed on high buildings.

Ukrainian people gather in Saint Peter’s Square waiting for the arrival of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at the Vatican, Rome on Saturday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Francis had previously met Zelensky in 2020. At the end of April, flying back to Rome from a trip to Hungary, Francis told reporters on the plane that the Vatican was involved in a behind-the-scene peace mission but gave no details. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has confirmed such an initiative.

He has said he would like to go to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, if such a visit could be coupled with one to Moscow, in hopes a papal pilgrimage could further the cause of peace.

The German government, meanwhile, said it was providing Ukraine with additional military aid worth more than €2.7 billion (US$3 billion), including tanks, anti-aircraft systems and ammunition.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said Berlin wanted to show with the latest package of arms “that Germany is serious in its support” for Ukraine.

“Germany will provide all the help it can, as long as it takes,” he said.

Meanwhile, some Ukrainian units continue to push forward near Bakhmut, the commander of Ukraine’s land forces said on Saturday, just a day after Ukrainian commanders said their troops recaptured territory at the scene of the war’s longest and bloodiest battle. “The defensive operation in the Bakhmut area continues. Our soldiers are moving forward in some sectors of the front, and the enemy is losing equipment and manpower,” Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update.

Russian shelling on Saturday wounded at least seven civilians in Ukraine’s south and northeast, regional Ukrainian officials said. Two women, a man and a teenage boy suffered wounds as Russian forces shelled the village of Khatnie, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, the local prosecutor’s office said.

Shelling also hit the centre of Huliaipole, a town in the southern Zaporizhzhia province, and wounded a civilian, presidential aide Andriy Yermak said. Two other civilians were hurt in the village of Chornobaivka, in the neighbouring Kherson region, another official said.

A “massive” Russian barrage overnight damaged an energy facility in Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region, the Ukrainian energy ministry said on Saturday morning. It added that power supply in the region was not affected. The mayor of the regional capital said that 11 civilians were wounded or injured overnight as a result of a Russian missile strike, He added that “hundreds” of residential buildings in the city were also damaged in the strike.

Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce battles against Russian forces have been taking place, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine on Friday. Photo: AP

Russian forces on Friday and overnight resumed their shelling of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, killing a civilian, local governor Oleh Syniehubov reported on Telegram on Saturday. Four civilians were killed over the same period in Ukraine’s front-line Donetsk province in the east, its governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Saturday.

Overnight, Russian forces launched at least 21 Iranian-made Shahed drones at Ukrainian territory, 17 of which were shot down, Ukraine’s air force said on Saturday. One of the drones hit unspecified “infrastructure facilities” in the western Khmelnytskyi region, the update said in a likely reference to the energy facility in the province that was damaged in the nightly strike, according to Ukraine’s energy ministry.

Three civilians were wounded overnight by Russian shelling in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, the mayor said on Saturday. One person was hospitalised, while the two others were treated on the spot. Multiple fires were reported within the city.

On Saturday two civilians were killed by Russian shelling which wounded 10 more in Kostyantynivka, a city less than 30km (18 miles) west of Bakhmut, the regional prosecutor’s office reported in a Telegram post.

According to the update, posted on the agency’s official channel, a 15-year-old girl was among those killed, while two more teenagers suffered wounds. The post featured a photo of an almost completely collapsed one-storey house, another, taller residential building with its doors and windows blown out, and another of a building with a destroyed roof and gaping holes in its facade.