Pope Francis says he has offered to travel to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine, but hasn’t yet heard back.
The Pope told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had sent a message to the Kremlin 20 days after the Russian invasion, via the Vatican’s top diplomat.
It is the first time the pontiff has mentioned Russia or publicly named Putin since the beginning of the war in Ukraine more than two months ago.
The Pope also said he had recently had a 40-minute zoom call with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Patriarch Kirill supports the war, and spent the first 20 minutes of the call reading out all the justifications for it, he told the paper.
The patriarch cannot transform himself into Putin’s altar boy, the Pope said.
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