Pope Francis will receive Volodymyr Zelensky Friday morning

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The Pope will welcome Volodymyr Zelensky to the Apostolic Palace from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. local time, according to the brief Vatican press release announcing the inclusion of this meeting on the official agenda of the sovereign pontiff. No press statement is planned following this interview.

The last meeting of the two men dates back to June, on the occasion of the summit of heads of state and government of the G7 in Puglia (southern Italy), where they had been invited by the Italian presidency of the group . Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Francis’ multiple calls for peace have all gone unheeded.

“I continue to follow with pain the fighting in Ukraine and the Russian Federation”

Relations between the Vatican and Ukraine are not in good shape. In March, Jorge Bergoglio provoked a diplomatic crisis between kyiv and the Vatican after calling on Ukraine to “raise the white flag and negotiate”. At the end of August, he also condemned kyiv’s ban on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church linked to Moscow, expressing his concern for freedom of worship in the country at war.

“I continue to follow with pain the fighting in Ukraine and the Russian Federation. And thinking of the laws recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the freedom of those who pray,” he said. Italian newspapers have also reported a possible meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the coming days, but no official confirmation has been published at this stage.

The Ukrainian president arrived in Croatia on Wednesday to attend a Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit intended to show “the region’s support for the Ukrainian people” and provide military aid to troops facing the Russian advance on the eastern front.

Ukraine Allies Meeting Postponed Due to Hurricane Milton

This visit comes at a difficult time for Ukraine, which lacks men and weapons. The Ukrainian president, who uses each trip as a platform to ask for more aid against Russia, recently regretted that the West was “dragging” deliveries of long-range missiles for his country.

After Dubrovnik, Volodymyr Zelensky was to go to Germany on Saturday to attend the international summit on Ukraine’s defense and present “clear and concrete measures with a view to a just end to the war”. But after the announcement by US President Joe Biden that he would not travel to Germany due to Hurricane Milton which is due to make landfall in Florida on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, the meeting of Ukraine’s allies been pushed back.

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