Pope meets Zelensky before the Ukrainian President addresses Biden over peace plan

Pope Francis held face-to-face talks with Volodymyr Zelensky today - before the Ukrainian President travelled on to meet Joe Biden to discuss the prospects of bringing the war with Russia to an end.

After meeting Sir Keir Starmer in London yesterday, Mr Zelensky continued his whirlwind tour of Europe, travelling to the Vatican.
He and the Pope held private talks for 35 minutes at the Vatican's apostolic palace.

At the end of the meeting, the Pontiff gifted Mr Zelensky a piece of bronze artwork with a flower growing next to a bird, inscribed with the phrase "Peace is a fragile flower".

Pope Francis last saw the Ukrainian president on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in southern Italy earlier this summer. The two also met at the Vatican in December 2023.

But the Pope drew the anger of Ukrainian officials in March when he suggested they should have the courage of the "white flag" to negotiate an end to the war with Russia, following Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Mr Zelensky dismissed the pope's remarks as "virtual mediation" from a distance.

Pope Francis recently announced he will make a bishop in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church one of 21 new Catholic cardinals, during a ceremony to be held December 8.

During yesterday’s trip to Rome, Mr Zelensky also held talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

But following his trip to Italy, Mr Zelensky will present his final "victory plan" over Russia this weekend to his nation's allies in Germany.

The Ukrainian President will deliver his new and heavily revised roadmap to peace to US President Biden and other Western leaders at the Ramstein American airbase tomorrow (Saturday).

"We will present the victory plan, clear, specific steps for a just end to the war," Mr Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian leader will meet Mr Biden and other leaders at the regular meeting of Kyiv's key NATO and other allies at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base.

Ukraine, fending off an invasion from its much larger neighbour for nearly 1,000 days, has recently suffered setbacks on the battlefield, with Russian forces taking the eastern city of Vuhledar after two years of resistance.

Mr Zelensky said that his government, military and diplomatic officials will do "everything" they can to ensure that the Ramstein meeting can become "positive for our defence, for our vision of how the war should end".

He presented some of the plan to Mr Biden and both the candidates running to succeed him, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, last week after months of Kyiv examining how to end the war.

The White House said Mr Zelensky's plan contained "a number of productive steps".

But one US official described it as a repackaged request for more weapons and a lifting of restrictions on the use of long-range missiles. The plan presupposes the ultimate defeat of Russia in the war, the official said.

Some officials see that aim as unrealistic.

Insiders said Ukraine ceding land to Russia to gain Nato membership may be the "only game in town".

But Ukrainian media cited a source in Zelensky's office as saying Kyiv does not "trade sovereignty and territories" and calling the report "simply chatter".

Russia's President Vladimir Putin said in June that Moscow would end the war he launched in February 2022 only if Kyiv agreed to hand over all of four regions claimed by Moscow and to drop its ambitions to join Nato.

Kyiv rejected those demands as tantamount to surrender.