Pope Francis’s peace envoy Thursday met with a Russian official needed by the ICC over allegations of illegally transferring Ukrainian kids to Russia and Moscow’s non secular chief Patriarch Kirill.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi started his go to to Russia earlier this week, in a primary such journey since President Vladimir Putin despatched troops to Ukraine in February 2022.
“Met with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi,” Moscow’s ombudswoman for kids’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova stated in a press release.
“We mentioned humanitarian points associated to navy operations and the safety of kids’s rights.
“I am sure that Christian love and mercy will help in dialogue and mutual understanding,” she added.
The International Criminal Court, which is predicated in The Hague, launched arrest warrants for Lvova-Belova in addition to Putin in March.
The court docket stated the orders had been linked to the battle crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian kids.
Kyiv says greater than 16,000 Ukrainian kids have been deported to Russia for the reason that starting of the Kremlin’s large-scale navy marketing campaign in Ukraine and that many had been positioned in establishments and foster houses.
The Kremlin and Lvova-Belova have dismissed the allegations and identified that Russia doesn’t recognise the jurisdiction of the court docket.
Zuppi visited Kyiv earlier this month.
At the time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to the Italian cardinal to assist safe the discharge of Ukrainian prisoners of battle and the return the youngsters he says had been “deported” to Russia.
Zuppi additionally met with the chief of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, in a uncommon assembly for a high-ranking Catholic official.
The Russian church chief is a staunch supporter of Putin and the offensive in Ukraine, typically portraying the battle in non secular phrases.
“I am very happy that you have come to Moscow,” Patriarch Kirill informed Zuppi in Moscow’s Danilov monastery.
“At a time when relations between Russia and the West are going through serious problems … it is very important that all the forces that want to preserve peace and justice unite,” he stated, pointing to the specter of a “major world war”.
He urged the 2 church buildings to affix arms to stop the state of affairs from “taking a negative turn”.
Relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church stay strained after a schism within the church buildings virtually 1,000 years in the past.
Zuppi delivered a mass at Moscow’s primary Catholic cathedral later Thursday. He is because of return to the Vatican on Friday.
Source: www.anews.com.tr
