MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser and a papal envoy on the Ukraine conflict on Wednesday mainly discussed humanitarian issues, including refugees, Russia’s senior Catholic prelate was quoted as saying.
The Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Moscow in Russia Paolo Pezzi told Tass news agency that Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov and Cardinal Matteo Zuppi had focused on refugees, particularly, children.
“The meeting between the cardinal and Ushakov went well, in a positive fashion,” Pezzi told the agency.
“The main element was humanitarian issues linked to refugees, including minors.”
He gave no further details.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had earlier said the two men would discuss the “situation around the conflict in Ukraine and, of course, possible paths of political and diplomatic settlement”.
Peskov said the Kremlin “highly appreciates the efforts and initiatives of the Vatican to find a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian crisis”.
The Vatican said on Tuesday that the main purpose of its initiative was to encourage “humanitarian gestures” that could contribute to resolving the conflict.
Ukraine has decried as a violation of human rights the dispatch to Russia of thousands of children during the 16-month-old conflict. Moscow rejects allegations of mass deportations and says it is rescuing children from conflict zones.
One U.N. report, released on Tuesday, accused Russia of detaining more than 800 civilians, some of them children.
Kyiv estimates nearly 19,500 children have been taken illegally to Russia or Russia-annexed Crimea since February 2022.
Zuppi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ukrainian religious leaders in Kyiv on June 6.
The French Catholic newspaper La Croix reported that he was expected to meet Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, while in Moscow.
Kirill is a close ally of Putin and fully backs what Russia still describes as its “special military operation” in Ukraine, as a bulwark against a “decadent” West.
The Vatican’s mention of “humanitarian gestures” appeared to refer to Ukraine’s request to help with the repatriation of children.
Zelenskiy has asked the Vatican to back his own peace plan, which calls for the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s state borders.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Gareth Jones, Kevin Liffey and Ron Popeski; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Cynthia Osterman)
