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By Shane Croucher
Senior Editor
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Pope Leo XIV intends to offer the Vatican to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin as a location for a bilateral Russia-Ukraine meeting, one of his top officials said.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin made the comments to reporters on Friday morning, according to Italian newspaper La Stampa.
Parolin called the debacle around the Istanbul talks "tragic because we hoped that a process could be started, perhaps slow but with a peaceful solution to the conflict, and instead we are back at the beginning."
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He said the Vatican "will see what to do but the situation is very difficult, dramatic," La Stampa reported, adding that the pope could make the offer of the Vatican as a venue for a direct meeting of the two parties.
The Vatican was the setting for a key meeting between President Donald Trump and Zelensky, who sat down together at the funeral of Pope Francis and made progress on setting up the Istanbul talks by increasing Trump's pressure on Putin.
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Istanbul Talks Erupt: 'Unacceptable Demands'
Parolin's remarks came as delegations from Russia and Ukraine sat down together for the first set of direct negotiations in more than three years, in the hope that they could finally agree on an end to the hostilities, temporarily at least.
But Putin declined Zelensky's offer of face-to-face talks, and instead sent a low-level delegation to Istanbul, damaging hopes of a major breakthrough and one that would lead to an initial full ceasefire that preceded a lasting peace deal.
The Istanbul talks ended in acrimony, however, for the Ukrainian side at least.
An unnamed senior Ukrainian official at the peace talks accused Moscow of introducing "unacceptable demands" that had not been previously discussed, The Associated Press reported.
This included calls for Kyiv's forces to withdraw from large areas of territory they control for a complete ceasefire to be implemented.
The official said it seemed as if the Russian delegation "deliberately wants to throw nonstarters on the table in order to walk away from today's meeting without any results."
He said the Ukrainian side reiterated it remained focused on achieving real progress—an immediate ceasefire and a pathway to substantive diplomacy, "just like the U.S, European partners, and other countries proposed," the official added.
Russia Satisfied With Ukraine Talks
Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin and head of the Russian delegation, said he was satisfied with the talks, state news agency TASS reported.
Medinsky said a prisoner swap had been agreed and that both sides would present visions of a ceasefire, after which talks would continue.
He said Ukraine had also requested a meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
Trump Wants Putin Meeting Soon
Trump said he will meet with Putin "as soon as we can set it up," in comments made during his visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
"I think it's time for us to just do it," Trump said.
The American president had said nothing would happen on peace between Russia and Ukraine until he and Putin met.
"We gotta stop the killing," Trump said in the UAE, lamenting the deaths of 5,000 soldiers a week on average and calling the conflict "a war that is going nowhere."
"We're going to get it done. We've got to get it done," he said of securing peace.
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