The Vatican just reopened a hotline to Putin over a starving Ukrainian city
1 hour ago · 17 October 2026Share
Pope Leo XIII in 1887. File photo.Attributed to Enrico Canè · Public domain
Pope Leo the Fourteenth called Vladimir Putin a day ago. From his hospital bed.
He's seventy one years old. Three days before that call, surgeons removed part of his right lung. He had lung cancer.
So he called Putin anyway.
The call happened in his room at the Gemelli hospital in Rome, where he's still recovering.
Here's why he called. There's a city in Ukraine called Oleshky. Russia has held it since day one of the invasion, back in February 2022. Right now about two thousand civilians are trapped there. Around forty of them are children.
The Pope asked Putin for a ceasefire. He asked for food. Medical aid. A safe corridor to get those people out.
And here's an interesting detail. The Vatican's own statement didn't say who made the first move on this call. But Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's Secretary of State, told reporters straight out: it was the Pope's idea. The Pope picked up the phone himself.
So what did Putin say?
He thanked the Pope. He said he backs the Vatican's plan to get supplies into Oleshky. He agreed to cooperate.
But here's the catch. The Kremlin also said Putin gave the Pope a detailed explanation blaming Ukraine's government for the whole humanitarian crisis in the city.
So Russia is saying two things at once. We'll cooperate. And also, this isn't our fault.
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Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019) showing southern Ukraine with agricultural fields in false-colour imagery. File photo. contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA · CC BY-SA 3.0 igo
Now, some context. This is only the second call between these two men since Leo became pope. The first one was about sixteen months ago, back in June last year.
And Oleshky has been starving for a while. The United Nations human rights office says the last regular food delivery by road got in on the twenty sixth of May this year. That's almost five months ago. Russian-installed officials in the city said this month they'd brought in two tonnes of aid. Even they said that's not enough.
This city has already survived one disaster. Back in June 2023, the Kakhovka Dam collapsed and flooded Oleshky. An Associated Press investigation found the Russian military likely caused that collapse. Hundreds of residents died.
Five days ago, at a forum in Poland, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Oleshky had been razed to the ground.
So is anyone ready to actually move on this?
Ukraine says yes. Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's Ombudsman, says Ukraine has an evacuation mission ready to go, and the International Committee of the Red Cross is ready too. But he says Russia hasn't confirmed it will actually go ahead.
The UN human rights office says Russia and Ukraine have talked about a temporary ceasefire and a humanitarian corridor before. No agreement has ever come of it.
Even the numbers aren't fully settled. America Magazine and the Vatican's own account say around two thousand civilians, about forty children. The Associated Press, reporting from inside the story, says the population has dwindled to fewer than two thousand, and quotes the exiled head of Oleshky's Ukrainian military administration saying at least thirty five children remain.
So what don't we know? Whether any of this becomes a real ceasefire. Putin's words were warm. They weren't specific. No date has been set for an evacuation. The Vatican hasn't even said how long the call lasted.
Right now, a pope who had lung surgery four days ago has reopened a line to Moscow that this entire war hasn't managed to shut. Whether that line goes anywhere is up to Putin.
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