Pope Leo XIV offers to host Russia-Ukraine talks, calls Istanbul peace attempt “tragic”

Pope Leo XIV has offered the Vatican as the venue to host future peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, the Vatican’s secretary of state has said.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin described the outcome of the recent Türkiye peace talks as “tragic.”

“It’s all tragic because we hoped that a process would begin, perhaps slowly, but with a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Instead, we are back to square one,” he said.

Prisoner exchange: only breakthrough

The Istanbul meeting marked a rare face-to-face encounter between Russian and Ukrainian delegations—the first in over three years. The two-hour session did produce an agreement for a major prisoner exchange involving 1,000 prisoners from each side, though no specific date was announced for the swap.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who headed Kyiv’s delegation, confirmed the prisoner exchange deal. From the Russian side, presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky acknowledged the outcome and noted Ukraine’s request for a meeting at the presidential level.

However, diplomatic sources indicate the broader peace negotiations stalled over territorial demands. According to Ukrainian officials, Russia insisted that Ukraine withdraw completely from the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—territories that Moscow has claimed since 2022 despite only partially controlling them.

Russia: “Ready to fight forever”

A source speaking to Reuters characterized these proposals as “detached from reality,” while a Kyiv official told The Telegraph that the Kremlin considered Ukrainian withdrawal from these territories a “minimum requirement” for any ceasefire.

During the talks, Medinsky reportedly asked the Ukrainian delegation: “We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?” According to The Economist’s Oliver Carroll, citing an informed source, the Russian presidential aide also stated that Russia “does not want war” but is prepared to continue fighting “for a year, two, three—however long it takes.”

Carroll’s report further indicates that Russian representatives threatened to expand their territorial claims to include Kharkiv and Sumy if their current demands were not met.