Papal envoy meets Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy in Kyiv: reports

Vatican City, Jun 6 (EFE).- Papal envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi has met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the capital Kyiv, Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, reported on Tuesday.

Both discussed “some key points toward a stable and concrete dialogue,” according to the Milan-based newspaper.

So far, the Vatican has not announced the meeting and it is still unknown whether Zuppi would visit Moscow as part of the mission that Pope Francis assigned to him.

Zuppi held a meeting on Monday with the Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights, Dmytro Lubinets, in Kyiv and called the violence affecting children in the war-ravaged country “unacceptable.”

Lubinets told Zuppi Ukraine had managed to return 371 children who were illegally deported by Russia during the war.

“Perhaps with your participation, we will be able to significantly change this number,” he added.

A few weeks ago, the Ukrainian president urged Francis during their meeting in the Vatican to help get children returned to Ukraine.

Zuppi also visited the town of Bucha, in the Kyiv region, where he was able to witness firsthand “the high price Ukrainians pay for freedom and peace in the world,” the Ukrainian government said in a statement on Monday.

The Holy See announced Zuppi’s two-day trip to Kyiv on Monday, saying: “This is an initiative whose main purpose is to listen in depth to the Ukrainian authorities about possible ways to achieve a just peace and to support gestures of humanity that will help ease tensions.”EFE

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