Zelenskyy asks for Pope Leo XIV’s help in bringing Ukrainian children home from Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed to Pope Leo XIV, asking the new pope for help in bringing home children deported from Ukraine to Russia.

The Ukrainian president also said he invited the new pope to visit Ukraine and the two men “agreed to stay in contact and plan (an) in-person meeting in the near future.”

Zelenskyy said a visit from the new pope “would bring real hope to all believers and to all our people.”

The phone call followed the pope’s appeal for peace in Ukraine during an address from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday afternoon.

On Monday, Zelenskyy posted on X about his first conversation with Leo, saying he thanked the pope for his support of Ukraine.

“We deeply value his words about the need to achieve a just and lasting peace for our country and the release of prisoners,” the Ukrainian president said.

Zelenskyy said they also discussed “the thousands of Ukrainian children deported by Russia.”

Ukraine “counts on the Vatican’s assistance in bringing them home to their families,” Zelenskyy said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior Kremlin officials have financed and facilitated the transport of Ukrainian children in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine into coerced foster care and adoptions since the 2022 invasion, according to an investigation released by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab. The Trump administration cut the lab’s funding in March.

On March 19, Zelenskyy said he had a positive, very substantive, and frank” conversation with President Trump about, among other things, “the return of Ukrainian children who were taken by Russian forces.”