Pope Leo XIV telephoned Vladimir Putin three days after undergoing lung-cancer surgery, putting forward a request that hostilities be paused long enough for civilians trapped in a besieged Ukrainian city to be evacuated. The call was confirmed in separate statements issued by the Vatican and the Kremlin. The Vatican released photographs of the pope taken on the same day.
Calls for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and for negotiations toward an enduring peace have marked Leo's public positions in the months following his May 2025 election. The pontiff, who heads the Catholic Church and is 71 years old, made the call from a Rome hospital bed while still recovering after surgeons removed a portion of his lung.
Leo directed his attention to Oleshky, a small city in Ukraine's southern Kherson region where Ukrainian officials say around 2,000 civilians, including roughly 40 children, are trapped without sufficient food. Food traders who once brought goods to Oleshky's markets on a routine basis stopped coming after May, when mine and drone strikes along the town's sole access route claimed the lives of people travelling in and out.
According to the Vatican statement, Leo put forward a request to Putin that food supplies and medical aid be delivered to the town and that a passage be established allowing residents to depart. The Kremlin statement indicated that Putin conveyed appreciation to the pope for his readiness to help bring the conflict toward resolution and for the humanitarian work the pontiff had been carrying out. The statement added that Putin had expressed backing for the Vatican's aim of helping to bring about conditions under which the city's residents could be kept safe and essential supplies delivered.
Over recent months, Ukrainian officials have attributed the city's isolation to Russian actions and put forward repeated requests for civilian evacuation corridors to be opened. Talks over a protected evacuation route have yet to yield any arrangement. Russian officials have attributed the civilian toll to Ukrainian actions while not disputing that non-combatants face ongoing danger.
Those pledges translated into little concrete action when put to the test along Ukraine's front lines, even as both sides formally recorded their agreement on humanitarian aid and evacuation measures. Residents who left Oleshky in the months prior described surviving on whatever their kitchen gardens happened to yield, with little else available to eat. Ukrainian authorities have placed on record the possibility of food shortages among the local population.
Drone deliveries of food reached the area from Ukrainian forces, though residents reported that occupying troops confiscated a portion of the packages and pressured those who attempted to retrieve them.
