The Release of Prisoners of War and the Return of Children to Their Families: The Mission of the Cardinal Sent by Leo XIV to Russia

(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 10.02.2026).- The Vatican’s diplomacy with Russia and Ukraine is continuing through a channel that rarely makes headlines for political breakthroughs but can produce concrete results for people caught in the war: prisoners, missing persons, displaced children and separated families.

From September 28 to 30, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Pope Leo XIV’s special envoy for humanitarian issues and president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, returned to Moscow for three days of meetings with Russian officials. It was his third mission to Russia, following visits in June 2023 and October 2024, but it came at a particularly significant moment in the Holy See’s efforts to maintain contact with both sides.

The trip followed Zuppi’s July visit to Ukraine, where he also visited detention facilities holding Russian soldiers in the Lviv region. In Moscow, the direction of the encounter was reversed: on September 29, Zuppi visited a detention centre holding Ukrainian prisoners of war and spoke personally with some of them to assess their condition.

What he heard, he said, reinforced the humanitarian urgency of prisoner exchanges.

“We noted a great desire to reunite with their loved ones,” Zuppi said, expressing hope that the visit would encourage further exchanges and new progress. His mission, he explained, was not to negotiate a political settlement but to support efforts by both sides concerning prisoners, children and civilians affected by the conflict.

His Moscow agenda brought him into contact with several senior Russian officials, including presidential adviser Yury Ushakov, human-rights ombudsman Yana Lantratova and children’s ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova. Discussions covered military and civilian prisoner exchanges, missing people, family reunification and children displaced by the war.

The children’s question is particularly delicate. According to a statement from Lvova-Belova’s office, Russian authorities said that, over four years, 32 children from 24 families had been reunited with relatives in Russia, while another 145 children from 118 families had been reunited with relatives in Ukraine or third countries. Those figures were presented by the Russian side and form part of a broader and deeply contested dispute over children removed from Ukrainian territory during the war.

The same discussions also touched on the humanitarian situation in Oleshky, in the occupied part of Ukraine’s Kherson region, where reports cited serious shortages of food and medicine and raised the possibility of a humanitarian corridor. Russia’s Foreign Ministry presented its own account of the situation, blaming Ukrainian authorities for conditions in the city; that characterization is the Russian government’s position, rather than an independently established finding.

The significance of Zuppi’s mission lies partly in its continuity. The cardinal’s mandate began under Pope Francis and was subsequently confirmed by Leo XIV. It forms part of a broader Vatican effort to keep humanitarian contacts alive even when diplomatic relations remain extraordinarily difficult.

That effort has not depended on Zuppi alone. Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states and international organizations, travelled to Russia from August 24 to 28, after visiting Ukraine in July. Zuppi had also travelled to Ukraine from July 13 to 16, while Gallagher was there from July 16 to 21.

The sequence suggests a deliberate Vatican strategy: maintain contact with both governments while concentrating on areas where dialogue can potentially serve individual human beings rather than geopolitical interests.

Pope Leo XIV reinforced that approach on September 28, during the flight back from France. Asked about the war, he said the Church continued inviting Russian, Ukrainian and other leaders to meet, talk and seek ways to resolve their disputes without perpetuating wars that, in his words, no longer made sense. 

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