Pope: I would like to visit Moscow before Kyiv

Pope Francis stated that before visiting Kyiv, he intended to travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “At the moment I am not preparing for Kyiv, I feel that I do not have to go there in the first place. I have to go to Moscow first, above all, I have to meet Putin,” said the pope in an interview with Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Francis recounted that on the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by phone. Twenty days later, Pope Francis requested that Cardinal Pietro Parolin deliver a message to the Russian leader, urging a meeting in Moscow. “We have not yet received a response and we continue to request it, but I fear that Putin will not be able or willing to meet at this time,” the pope stated.

“How can we stop such a monstrous thing? Twenty-five years ago, we experienced a similar situation in Rwanda, where approximately 800,000 people were killed between April and July of 1994 during the Hutu regime’s attempt to eliminate the Tutsi minority.” Pope Francis has advocated for peace in Ukraine and condemned the “brutal and senseless war.” He has not directly addressed Putin or Moscow. The pope highlighted the importance of dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who is close to Putin, and the Roman Catholic Church, noting that the two churches separated in 1054.

Since the invasion began on February 24, Pope Francis’s calls for peace have contrasted with Patriarch Kirill’s statements, which have supported Putin’s actions against what he describes as Russia’s “internal and external enemies.”

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