Pope Francis’ envoy for peace in Ukraine, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, began his mission in Moscow to “promote gestures of humanity”three weeks after his trip to kyiv, in the midst of a schedule of political and religious meetings that includes one of the Kremlin’s top political advisers.
Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna, arrived in Moscow on Tuesday night for a two-day visit with which he will seek to generate actions to “contribute to the solution of the tragic situation in Ukraine,” the Vatican announced to explain the second stage of the peace mission of the also president of the Italian Episcopal Conference.
Zuppi’s agenda, which remains in reserve, will include a meeting with Kermlin’s political adviser, Yury Ushakov, as announced at a press conference in Moscow by the institution’s spokesman, Dimitri Peskov. At the moment, there are no meetings on the agenda at the Russian Foreign Ministry, according to the Moscow Foreign Ministry in a note late on Tuesday.
Zuppi’s agenda, which remains in reserve, will include a meeting with Kermlin political adviser Yury Ushakov.
According to Vatican sources consulted by Telam, among the cardinal’s activities, a mass is planned in the Catholic cathedral of the Russian capital, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, seat of the metropolitan archdiocese.
Zuppi’s arrival in Moscow, together with an official from the Vatican Secretariat of State, represents the first visit to Moscow of a high official of the Holy See since the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, and will focus on meetings with religious leaders.
In this framework, the expectation is set on a possible meeting with the Orthodox patriarch Cyril (or Kiril), the most important leader of that branch of Christianity predominant in Russia and who became an ally of Vladimir Putin in the aggression against Ukraine.
Last year, because of the Patriarch’s pro-war stance, Francis canceled a scheduled meeting with Cyril in Jerusalem and called him “Putin’s altar boy” for his staunch defense of Moscow’s position.
Zelensky only opened the possibility that the Pope and the Holy See intercede with Russia for the repatriation of thousands of children
The Vatican peace mission, however, encounters strong resistance in Ukraine, after the refusal of President Volodimir Zelensky to sit at any negotiating table that includes Russia, as the president expressed to the Pope during a meeting in the Vatican in May.
Zelensky only opened the possibility that the Pope and the Holy See intercede with Russia for the repatriation of thousands of children that Ukraine denounces were taken during the conflict, an issue that the pontiff considered of “humanitarian” importance.
On June 5, Zuppi concluded his two-day visit to kyiv as papal envoy for settlement in Ukraine, in what the Vatican deemed a “short but eventful” trip.
While Zuppi is in Moscow, another cardinal trusted by the Pope, Almoner Konrad Krajewski, heads a humanitarian mission in Ukraine to bring aid and comfort to the population wounded by the war and its consequences.
Krajewski’s visit, on his sixth trip sent by the Pope, this time focuses on Kherson, where the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam was destroyed in recent weeks, an event that has caused enormous damage in the area.
Zuppi, 67, burst onto the international scene with the signing, in 1992, of a peace agreement in Mozambique while working closely with the Sant’Egidio community
To date, Ukraine has conditioned the cessation of hostilities on the recovery of all territories, including the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
For his part, the Kremlin mentioned that the political solution to stop the fighting is always possible and when “the de facto situation and the new territorial reality” are taken into account, regarding the land that it occupied in its invasion.
The last round of Russian-Ukrainian peace talks took place at the end of March 2022 in Turkey, and since then the parties have not met again.
The news of the commission conferred on Zuppi had been released by the Vatican Press Office on May 20, after the Pope himself spoke of a peace “mission” for Ukraine.
Zuppi, 67, burst onto the international scene with the signing, in 1992, of a peace agreement in Mozambique while working closely with the Sant’Egidio community, an international lay organization dedicated to conflict resolution issues.
