“They brought me a list of more than 300 prisoners. They asked me to do something to change. Immediately, I called the Russian ambassador to see if something could be done, if an exchange of prisoners could be accelerated,” Francis points out.
The talk was on September 15, with the participation of twenty religious, as reported on Thursday.
The publication of these statements to the religious who work mainly in Russia and Belarus comes a week after the announcement of the largest exchange of military prisoners between Ukraine and Russia since the beginning of the war.
Ukraine announced on September 22 the release of 215 people, including 188 who had defended the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, a symbol of resistance to the Russian invasion.
The pope also spoke of his visit to the Russian embassy in the Vatican the day after the start of the invasion of Ukraine in late February.
“I told the ambassador that I would have liked to speak with President (Vladimir) Putin, but on the condition that he leave me a small window open for dialogue,” the Pope confessed.
The Holy See, which has been trying since February 24 to maintain a delicate diplomatic balance with the two countries, condemned a “cruel and senseless” war, without openly breaking with Russia.
“Here the victim of this conflict is Ukraine. I intend to reflect on why this war was not prevented. And war is like a marriage, in a way. To understand it, you have to investigate the dynamics that unleashed the conflict. There are international factors that contributed to provoking the war,” he explained to the Jesuits.
Source: Ambito
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