This story has been updated.
Pope Leo XIV and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke together by phone today, June 4, for the first time, the Kremlin said. The Russian news agency Interfax reported the news, and the Vatican later confirmed the phone call.
Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See Press Office, told reporters: “The Pope made an appeal for Russia to make a gesture that would favor peace, emphasizing the importance of dialogue to create positive contacts between the parties [in conflict] and seek solutions to the conflict.”
In the statement, issued at 9:02 pm local time, Mr. Bruni said the two leaders “talked about the humanitarian situation, the need to favor aid where necessary, the continuous efforts for the exchange of prisoners and the value of the work that Cardinal [Matteo] Zuppi is doing in this regard.”
“Pope Leo made reference to [Russian Orthodox] Patriarch Kirill, thanking him for the congratulations received at the beginning of his pontificate, and underlined how shared Christian values can be a light that helps to seek peace, defend life, and pursue genuine religious freedom,” said Mr. Bruni.
ANSA, the main Italian news agency, said that according to Interfax, “Vladimir Putin expressed appreciation in a phone call with the Pope for his willingness to help resolve the Ukrainian crisis.”
The Kremlin described the conversation as “constructive,” according to the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, and said the Russian president, in his conversation with the Holy Father, “stressed that Kiev’s deliberate and targeted attack on civilians can clearly be defined as terrorism.”
The last time President Putin spoke with the head of the Catholic Church was on Dec. 17, 2021, when he phoned Pope Francis to wish him a happy birthday. Mr. Putin refused to take any calls from the pope after he launched the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. He did not attend the pope’s funeral, and the minister who was to represent him at Leo’s installation did not arrive, seemingly because of air travel difficulties. The Russian ambassador to the Holy See, Ivan Soltanovsky, represented the Russian delegation at the inaugural Mass.
When Pope Francis sent Cardinal Matteo Zuppi as his special envoy to address humanitarian issues between Russia and Ukraine, he was only received by an advisor to the president, and not at a senior level.
Pope Leo, like Francis, has extended the good offices of the Holy See to facilitate negotiations between the two sides, and recently even offered the Holy See as a site for talks between the two sides. The offer was deemed “inappropriate” by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who said it was not fitting that two Orthodox states should discuss their problems in a Catholic state.
Pope Leo, after his installation, had a private conversation with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who attended both the funeral of Pope Francis and the inauguration ceremony for Pope Leo.
Given all this, today’s conversation between President Putin and Pope Leo comes as a surprise, and at the time of writing, it is not clear who initiated the call.
U.S. President Donald Trump also spoke by phone with Mr. Putin today. The Russian president told Mr. Trump “very strongly” that he will respond to Ukraine’s weekend drone attack on Russian airfields, as the deadlock over the war drags on and President Zelenskyy dismisses Russia’s ceasefire proposal.
The U.S. president said in a social media post that his lengthy call with Putin “was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace.”
It is the first time Mr. Trump has weighed in on Ukraine’s daring attack inside Russia. The U.S. did not have advance notice of the operation, according to the White House.
Mr. Trump, in his social media post, did not say how he reacted to Putin’s promise to respond to Ukraine’s attack, but his post showed none of the frustration that the U.S. president has expressed with his Russian counterpart in recent weeks over his prolonging of the war.
In a May 19 phone call with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said that “[n]egotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately. The Vatican, as represented by the Pope, has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations.”
On May 27, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, told Vatican News that Pope Leo was not offering himself or a Vatican official as a mediator, something neither side requested, but simply offered the Vatican as “a neutral, protected venue.”
Material from The Associated Press and Catholic News Service was used in this report.
