The Holy See Press Office reported on the conversation, held late in the afternoon of this Monday, October 19. According to the note, the Pontiff reminded Volodymyr Zelensky of the grave situation in Oleshky and specifically referred to the request for a humanitarian truce that he had already conveyed to the President of the Russian Federation. Leo XIV expressed his hope that collaboration between both parties would make possible the entry of food and medical aid, as well as «the voluntary and safe evacuation of the civilian population«. The text concludes with the reaffirmation of the Holy See’s commitment to dialogue and peace.
The communiqué does not include the Ukrainian president’s response, does not specify who initiated the conversation, nor does it indicate from where the Pope spoke, who as of last Friday was still hospitalized at the Gemelli Polyclinic.
Vatican News frames the call within the expression that Leo XIV used in his recent speech in Metz to refer to the war in Ukraine: inutile strage, the «useless massacre». It is the same formula with which Benedict XV described the First World War in his note to the belligerent countries on August 1, 1917.
A City with No Exit
Oleshky, on the left bank of the Dnieper, has been under Russian control since the early months of the 2022 invasion. According to sources in Kyiv cited by Vatican News, around 2,000 people remain in the town, including about fifty children, who have been without water, electricity, medicine, or ambulances for months. The Vatican portal adds that the bridge connecting it to Kherson has been destroyed and that the exit roads and surrounding villages are mined, so there is no evacuation corridor.
Ukrainian authorities accuse Russian forces of blocking the humanitarian passage, while Moscow attributes responsibility to Kyiv. Restrictions on access to the area make independent verification of these data difficult.
Seventeen Months of Contacts with Kyiv
Since his election, Leo XIV has met with Zelensky on three occasions and has spoken with him by phone three other times, including this Monday’s call. The first telephone conversation took place on May 12, 2025, four days after the conclave, when the Ukrainian president invited the new Pope to Kyiv. In those early days of his pontificate, Leo XIV also offered the Vatican as a neutral place to negotiate peace.
The first meeting took place on May 18, 2025, after the inaugural Mass of the pontificate, with Olena Zelenska present. On July 9, 2025, they met again at Villa Barberini in Castel Gandolfo, where the possibility of hosting negotiations at the Vatican was discussed. The third audience was on December 9, 2025, again in Castel Gandolfo, with prisoners of war and Ukrainian children deported to Russia as central issues. On April 3, on the eve of Easter, they spoke again by phone amid an escalation of Russian drone and missile attacks.
These are the same matters on which Cardinal Matteo Zuppi is working, having traveled twice to Kyiv and twice to Moscow. The visit last summer by Monsignor Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, gave new impetus to that work.
The Call to Putin from the Gemelli
The conversation with Zelensky completes the initiative begun on Friday, October 16. That day Leo XIV spoke by phone with Vladimir Putin from the Gemelli, where he had been admitted on Tuesday the 13th for surgery on a pulmonary nodule. According to Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, the call was the Pope’s own initiative, who requested a truce in Oleshky to allow the arrival of food and medical assistance and the evacuation