MOSCOW, Aug 25 (Reuters) – A senior Vatican official urged an end to the Ukraine war after meeting in Moscow on Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the first in-person talks between Vatican and Russian officials in five years.
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister, said every day that the four-year Russia-Ukraine war continues, it “creates new victims … and renders future reconciliation ever more difficult.”
“It is therefore urgent and necessary to end and to look beyond the conflict,” he said, speaking next to Lavrov at a joint press conference following their meeting.
He also said that he and Lavrov had discussed avenues towards peace in Ukraine and that the two had agreed to cooperate on humanitarian matters such as caring for children impacted by the war.
Gallagher, the Vatican’s second-highest diplomatic official, had last visited Moscow for talks with Lavrov in 2021, before the start of the war.
Pope Leo has repeatedly called for an end to the conflict. In an August 9 appeal, he lamented the “ever-growing number of civilian victims, including children”.
Gallagher said on Tuesday the Vatican would “continue to provide strong spiritual, diplomatic, and humanitarian support by contributing to and offering a space for dialogue” to end the war, which has raged for 4-1/2 years.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou and Joshua McElwee; Editing by Conor Humphries)
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