Pope Leo XIV is still recovering in Rome’s Gemelli hospital, but that has not stopped him from picking up the phone to Moscow. On Friday the pontiff spoke with Vladimir Putin and asked him for a pause in the fighting around Oleshky, a small town in the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region.
Oleshky sits on the left bank of the Dnieper, right on the front line. According to Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, around 2,000 civilians there need safe corridors to get out. Both Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of cutting the town off from supplies, while Ukrainian forces are trying to win it back.
In its short readout, the Holy See said Leo had voiced deep concern about the humanitarian situation and urged a ceasefire so that food and medicine could be brought in and residents who wish to leave could do so safely and voluntarily. Leo closed by underlining that the Church remains ready to help any effort towards talks and an end to the war.
The Kremlin’s version sounded cooperative. Putin, it said, backed the Vatican’s idea of creating safer conditions for the population and organising vital deliveries. Both sides would work together on the issue, Moscow added, without saying when supplies might move or whether guns would fall silent.
Parolin stressed that the call was the pope’s own initiative. He said he hoped the Russian leader would follow through, and read the fact that Putin took the call as an encouraging sign.
It is only the second known conversation between the two men; the previous one took place in June 2025. Leo made the call only three days after Tuesday’s surgery, in which doctors took out part of his right lung.
