Vatican envoy urges swift end to Ukraine war after Moscow talks with Lavrov

Vatican envoy Archbishop Paul Gallagher urged an immediate cessation of the war in Ukraine following his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on August 25. This marks the first face-to-face negotiations between Vatican officials and Russian representatives in five years. Speaking alongside Lavrov at a joint press conference, Gallagher emphasized that each day the four-year conflict persists "creates new victims... and makes future reconciliation increasingly difficult."

The Vatican representative and the Russian minister discussed potential paths to peace in Ukraine and agreed to collaborate on humanitarian aid, particularly for children affected by the war. Gallagher, serving as the Vatican's second-highest-ranking diplomatic official, had last visited Moscow in 2021, prior to the onset of the full-scale war.

Pope Francis has consistently called for an end to the conflict, expressing concern over the growing number of civilian casualties, including children. In his statement on August 25, Gallagher stated that the Vatican will maintain its strong spiritual, diplomatic, and humanitarian support to foster dialogue and facilitate the end of the prolonged war, now in its fourth and a half year.

On August 24, The Times reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, alongside U.S. and European officials, had developed a joint plan for ending the war, which includes a ceasefire, the mutual withdrawal of troops from the front line, and the establishment of a buffer zone. The newspaper suggested that these proposals could be relayed to the Russian side through the Vatican representative who recently arrived in Russia.

Prior to this, on August 12, Zelenskyy did not disclose specifics of new peace process proposals in an interview with CNN but urged the United States to become more actively involved, claiming there was currently insufficient pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. On August 13, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov claimed that Moscow had no knowledge of new proposals conveyed by Kyiv to Washington.