WORLD – VATIĐĄANÂ
Pope Francis has said he is ready to visit Ukraine, but only if he can also go to Moscow.
“I am ready to go to Kiev. I want to go to Kiev. But on the condition that I go to Moscow as well. I am going to both places or neither of them,” the pontiff told the Argentine newspaper La Nacion in an interview published on Saturday, March 11.
Speaking about the trip to Russia, Francis admitted that he cannot visit Moscow at the moment, but “it is not impossible”.
“We hope it will work out. Notice, there are no promises, nothing. I have not closed this door, and maybe he(Putin) will be distracted and open it.”
The pontiff also revealed that as early as the second day after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, he offered to go to Russia, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov turned him down.
When asked whether there was a Vatican peace plan, the Pope said that it did not exist, but that there was a “peace service” and that the Vatican was working hard to put an end to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
