Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi arrived in Rome on Saturday for talks with government officials and Pope Francis, who said in late April that the Vatican was participating in a peacekeeping mission to end the war with Russia, Reuters reports.

Zelensky, on his first trip to Italy since Russia invaded last February, is due to meet with President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Georgia Maloney before heading to the Vatican. He is also expected to be a guest on a popular Italian television talk show before heading to Germany.

Maloney visited Zelenskyi in Kyiv in February to reassure him of Italy’s continued support for Ukraine, despite the fact that some of his allies, including former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, have close and long-standing ties to Moscow.

The meeting with the Pope is expected to be the most important part of Zelenskyi’s stay in Italy. He previously met with the Pope at the Vatican in 2020, and they have had several phone conversations since the war began.

At the beginning of the war, the Pope tried to take a measured approach in the hope of mediating, but later he began to strongly condemn Russia’s actions, comparing them to some of the worst crimes against Ukraine during the Soviet era.

Returning from a trip to Hungary on April 30, Francis made an intriguing and cryptic announcement about the Vatican’s involvement in a mission to end the war.

“The mission is currently underway, but it is not yet public. When it’s public, I’ll reveal it,” he told reporters on the flight home.

Both Moscow and Kyiv publicly expressed surprise at his words. The Vatican insisted that something was being prepared, but did not provide details.

A letter to Putin

This week, Pope Francis met with Russia’s outgoing ambassador to the Vatican, Alexander Avdeev, and Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reported that the Vatican handed the envoy a letter for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The sovereign pontiff pleaded for peace almost every week and repeatedly expressed his desire to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow. So far, his proposal has not brought any progress.

The Pope has a standing invitation from Zelensky to visit Kyiv, but the Pope has previously said he also wants to visit Moscow as part of the same peacekeeping mission.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, during a meeting with the Pope in the Vatican on April 27, announced that he had discussed the “peace formula” proposed by Zelensky.

Zelenskyi and his team actively promoted the 10-point Kyiv peace plan and called on world leaders to hold a global peace summit based on these proposals.

It refers to the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of hostilities, as well as the restoration of the state border of Ukraine. Zelenskyi has repeatedly stated that the plan is not open for negotiations.

Pope Francis said that the Vatican is ready to do “everything humanly possible” to help repatriate Ukrainian children.

Kyiv estimates that since February 2022, almost 19,500 children have been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea, calling them illegal deportations.

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