Ukraine asks Vatican to formalize mediation role for return of citizens taken by Russia

Pope Leo XIV waves to faithful as he arrives in St. Peter's Square on the occasion of the weekly general audience at the Vatican, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

By NICOLE WINFIELD and ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Ukraine has asked the Vatican to formalize its role facilitating negotiations over the return of Ukrainian children and civilians taken by Russia during the nearly four-year war, a Kyiv government official said Wednesday.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the request in a letter to Pope Leo XIV ahead of an audience Friday between the pope and a delegation of returned Ukrainian children and civilians.

The letter asked that Leo formalize the informal arrangement launched by Pope Francis in which an Italian cardinal, Matteo Zuppi, had served as a personal papal envoy for humanitarian issues.

“To be able to achieve more, we need to formalize this process in the Vatican, and this is why this request now comes officially,” said the deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office, Iryna Vereshchuk.

She told reporters in Rome that Ukraine wanted the Holy See to act as the middleman, or “platform,” through which Ukraine and Russia could discuss the return of civilians.

It is not clear whether any have been returned via the Vatican’s informal channel.

Vereshchuk was accompanying a delegation of Ukrainian children, parents and grandparents who had lived in Russian-controlled or occupied parts of Donetsk or were held by Russian forces elsewhere and were now living in Ukrainian-controlled territory.

She said under the Zuppi mission, Russia had managed to use a “gray zone” to not respond to Ukraine’s lists of civilians it wanted released, because the process was not formalized.

“Once the process is formalized we can have proper communications with the Russians and when we submit a letter through the platform they will have to respond,” she said.

Neither the Vatican nor the Russian embassy to the Holy See immediately responded to requests for comment.

Ukrainian officials say the country continues to document thousands of cases of children who were unlawfully taken to Russian territory during the war — a practice Kyiv calls one of the most sensitive humanitarian crises of the conflict.

The International Criminal Court in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.

According to current data published by Ukraine’s Bring Kids Back presidential platform, 19,546 Ukrainian children were officially recorded as deported or forcibly transferred by Russia.

Media reports quoting Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, said that as of March 27, 1,247 children had been successfully returned to Ukraine through diplomatic and humanitarian channels.

___

Novikov contributed from Kyiv, Ukraine.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.