Russian President Vladimir Putin is to meet with Pope Francis next week at the Vatican, a spokesman for the Holy See confirmed today.
The Russian leader's visit to Italy will mark his second to the pontiff and the first time they will meet face-to-face since the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, with Moscow accused of deploying troops and hardware on Ukrainian soil in aid of separatists.
The ex-KGB agent's trip will take place on 10 June just days after world leaders convene for the 41st G7 Summit in Bavaria, Germany, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi confirmed. Putin will take in the Expo world's fair in Milan hours before he meets with the Argentinian leader of the Catholic world.
Francis has refrained from publicly condemning Russia's actions in Ukraine despite complaints from Ukraine's Greek Catholic minority but he has expressed concern at "a war between Christians" and called for an agreed ceasefire to be observed by both sides.
"Let us pray to the Lord so that this horrible fratricide violence may cease as soon as possible," he said in his weekly General Audience in February, according to the Vatican news service.
"When I hear the words 'victory' or 'defeat' I feel a great pain, a great sadness fills my heart, the only right world is 'peace'," he added. "They are not the right words. The only right word is peace. This is the only right word."
It is believed that the conflict between Kiev and Moscow will be top of Francis' concerns when the two meet, alongside other issues such as the Syrian conflict, where Russia has remained a key ally to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad despite the deaths of nearly a quarter of a million people.
In 2009, the Vatican and Moscow officially bridged their diplomatic relationship following a visit by then-President Dmitry Medvedev after decades of animosity between the two throughout the Cold War. The icy relationship was thawed in 1989 when Mikhail Gorbachev met with Pope John Paul II after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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