Pope Leo XIV at General Audience June 4, 2025 (@Vatican Media)
Letter #52, 2025, Thursday, June 5: The June 4 phone call between Pope Leo XIV and Russian President Vladimir Putin
Just as the dangers of expansion of the war in Ukraine seemed to reach a new pitch — with many observers warning that “World War III” might soon be unleashed — Pope Leo XIV, 69, and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, 72, had their first phone call ever on yesterday, June 4, in the afternoon.
It is not yet known who initiated the call, Putin or the Pope.
The Religious “Off-Ramp”
The fact that the “religious element” (in this case, the presence of the Pope of Rome on a phone call with Russia’s leader, Putin) has entered the multi-sided equation of the war negotiations, is of profound importance.
The dialogue now is not just between diplomats and military men over weapons and territorial boundaries, but between leaders who look beyond the immediate conflict in view of a more general, “civilizational,” dialogue — the type of dialogue that might help ensure that any peace would last longer than a few weeks, months or years.
The historical role of Rome, as a common “civilizational” reference point for all parties — for Russia and Ukraine as well as the West in general — seems to be making itself felt.
Echoing ancient Roman writers, we sometimes say even today that “all roads lead to Rome.”
In this present tragic situation, could the road to peace also lead to Rome, or through Rome?
***
Note: Also on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump also spoke with President Putin. (link)
The talks yesterday were, then, in some sense, “triangular,” with the common interlocutor being Pope Leo.
***
The results of the Pope Leo-Putin phone call are not yet clear.
But the fact of the call is by itself important.
On the vigil of a possible widening of the war, the Pope and the Russian president spoke at length.
This is the main point.
Whether this may lead to serious talks, perhaps in the Vatican itself by — something that has been mentioned by US President Trump (link), but played down as “inappropriate” by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — is not yet clear.
But, in light of this Pope Leo-Putin call, it seems now that this possibility — that the Vatican might be a possible location to host peace talks — is not to be excluded.
***
In the complex, dangerous situation of a Russia-Ukraine war that has already, tragically, taken the lives of perhaps a million men on both sides (death and casualty estimates vary widely), the path to the end of the conflict has seemed fraught with difficulty.
Indeed, in human terms, almost impossible.
In recent days, Ukraine has struck far inside Russia with drones, against Russian bombers in multiple airports as far as Irkutsk, deep in Siberia, in attacks of an unprecedented type. At the same time, Germany has said it will provide its own Taurus missiles to Ukraine to be fired against Russia, and the range of these German missiles includes the capital of Russia, Moscow (link). This has led Russian spokesmen to speak openly about firing Russian missiles into Germany to destroy the factories that produce these missiles (link).
In other words, actions and words on both sides are already expanding the war into the east, deep into Russia, and threatening to expand it into the West, into Germany, and then, perhaps, to other western countries.
In this context, the Wednesday, June 4, phone call between Pope Leo and Putin — the first time the two have spoken — is certainly quite significant.
***
Yesterday, mid “rumors” in the press corps on Rome that there had been such a call, the Vatican’s press office director, Dr. Matteo Bruni issued a statement to the press quite late in the evening, just after 9 p.m. on the evening of June 4.
Here is the text of the statement by Bruni that appeared on the Vatican’s Telegram channel:
“I confirm that this afternoon there was a telephone conversation between Pope Leo XIV and President Putin.
“During the telephone call, in addition to issues of mutual interest, particular attention was paid to the situation in Ukraine and peace. The Pope made an appeal for Russia to make a gesture that favors peace, he emphasized the importance of dialogue for the realization of positive contacts between the parties and to seek solutions to the conflict.
“They spoke about the humanitarian situation, the need to favor aid where necessary, the continuous efforts for the exchange of prisoners and the value of the work that Cardinal Zuppi carries out in this sense.
“Pope Leo referred to Patriarch Kirill, thanking him for the good wishes received at the beginning of his pontificate and emphasized how common Christian values ​​can be a light that helps to seek peace, defend life and seek authentic religious freedom.”
Next, here is the text of the official Vatican News report on the phone call:
Pope Leo XIV speaks by phone with Russian President Putin (link)
Speaking by phone with President Vladimir Putin, Pope Leo XIV urges Russia to take a step that favours peace, underlining the importance of dialogue.
By Vatican News
On Wednesday afternoon, Pope Leo XIV and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone, focusing especially on the war in Ukraine.
Matteo Bruni, Director of the Holy See Press Office, told reporters that the Pope and the President discussed the humanitarian situation, as well as the need to facilitate aid where necessary.
“The Pope made an appeal for Russia to take a gesture that would favor peace, emphasizing the importance of dialogue to create positive contacts between the parties and seek solutions to the conflict,” said the statement.
Pope Leo XIV and President Putin also discussed the ongoing efforts for prisoner exchanges and the value of the work that Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna, is doing in this regard.
“Pope Leo made reference to Patriarch Kirill, thanking him for the congratulations received at the beginning of his pontificate, and underlined how shared Christian values can be a light that helps to seek peace, defend life, and pursue genuine religious freedom,” said Mr. Bruni.
And here below is a report from Gerard O’Connell, Vatican correspondent for America, the American Jesuit weekly, published last night.
—RM
Pope Leo XIV and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have first phone call (link)
June 04, 2025, America magazine
Pope Leo XIV and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke together by phone today, June 4, for the first time, the Kremlin said. The Russian news agency Interfax reported the news, and the Vatican later confirmed the phone call.
Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See Press Office, told reporters: “The Pope made an appeal for Russia to make a gesture that would favor peace, emphasizing the importance of dialogue to create positive contacts between the parties [in conflict] and seek solutions to the conflict.”
In the statement, issued at 9:02 pm local time, Mr. Bruni said the two leaders discussed “talked about the humanitarian situation, the need to favor aid where necessary, the continuous efforts for the exchange of prisoners and the value of the work that Cardinal [Matteo] Zuppi is doing in this regard.”
“Pope Leo made reference to [Russian Orthodox] Patriarch Kirill, thanking him for the congratulations received at the beginning of his pontificate, and underlined how shared Christian values can be a light that helps to seek peace, defend life, and pursue genuine religious freedom,” said Mr. Bruni.
ANSA, the main Italian news agency, said that according to Interfax, “Vladimir Putin expressed appreciation in a phone call with the Pope for his willingness to help resolve the Ukrainian crisis.”
The Kremlin described the conversation as “constructive,” according to the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, and said the Russian president, in his conversation with the Holy Father, “stressed that Kiev’s deliberate and targeted attack on civilians can clearly be defined as terrorism.”
The last time President Putin spoke with the head of the Catholic Church was on Dec. 17, 2021, when he phoned Pope Francis to wish him a happy birthday. Mr. Putin refused to take any calls from the Pope after he launched the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. He did not attend the Pope’s funeral, and the minister who was to represent him at Leo’s installation did not arrive, seemingly because of air travel difficulties. The Russian ambassador to the Holy See, Ivan Soltanovsky, represented the Russian delegation at the inaugural Mass.
When Pope Francis sent Cardinal Matteo Zuppi as his special envoy to address humanitarian issues between Russia and Ukraine, he was only received by an advisor to the president, and not at a senior level.
Pope Leo, like Francis, has extended the good offices of the Holy See to facilitate negotiations between the two sides, and recently even offered the Holy See as a site for talks between the two sides. The offer was deemed “inappropriate” by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who said it was not fitting that two Orthodox states should discuss their problems in a Catholic state.
Pope Leo, after his installation, had a private conversation with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who attended both the funeral of Pope Francis and the inauguration ceremony for Pope Leo.
Given all this, today’s conversation between President Putin and Pope Leo comes as a surprise, and at the time of writing, it is not clear who initiated the call.
U.S. President Donald Trump also spoke by phone with Mr. Putin today.
The Russian president told Mr. Trump “very strongly” that he will respond to Ukraine’s weekend drone attack on Russian airfields, as the deadlock over the war drags on and President Zelenskyy dismisses Russia’s ceasefire proposal.
The U.S. president said in a social media post that his lengthy call with Putin “was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace.”
It is the first time Mr. Trump has weighed in on Ukraine’s daring attack inside Russia. The U.S. did not have advance notice of the operation, according to the White House.
Mr. Trump, in his social media post, did not say how he reacted to Putin’s promise to respond to Ukraine’s attack, but his post showed none of the frustration that the U.S. president has expressed with his Russian counterpart in recent weeks over his prolonging of the war.
In a May 19 phone call with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said that “[n]egotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately. The Vatican, as represented by the Pope, has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations.”
On May 27, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, told Vatican News that Pope Leo was not offering himself or a Vatican official as a mediator, something neither side requested, but simply offered the Vatican as “a neutral, protected venue.”
Material from The Associated Press and Catholic News Service was used in this report.
Gerard O’Connell is America’s Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.
Facebook Comments