Ukraine war: Vatican envoy urges urgent end in Moscow

The Vatican's top foreign diplomat urged an urgent end to the Ukraine war on Tuesday during his first visit to Moscow since 2021.

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican's Secretary for Relations with States, made the appeal at a press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Gallagher said each day the war continued made reconciliation more difficult and said it was urgent and necessary to end the conflict and look beyond it.

Lavrov said he had outlined Russia's “principled approaches” to ending the conflict and described relations with the Vatican as “friendly and pragmatic.”

Gallagher began the Russia visit on Monday. The visit is scheduled to last until Thursday and includes meetings with representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate and the local Catholic community.

Gallagher is the most senior Vatican official to visit Russia since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Pope Leo has regularly called for peace in Ukraine and offered the Vatican as a meeting place for talks, although Russia has called that option “unrealistic.”

According to UN data, the number of civilians killed and injured in the four-and-a-half-year conflict reached its highest level since 2022 last month.