MOSCOW, AUG 25: The Vatican’s most senior foreign diplomat called for an “urgent” end to the Ukraine war Tuesday, as he visited Moscow for the first time since 2021.

In a press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Archbishop Paul Gallagher said each day the war continued made reconciliation “ever more difficult.”

“It is therefore urgent and necessary to end and to look beyond the conflict, in order to ensure that the future memory of past wrongs does not become a prison, nor that present sufferings become a legacy of hatred,” Gallagher said.

Lavrov said he had outlined Russia’s “principled approaches” to ending the conflict and described relations with the Vatican as “friendly and pragmatic.”

Civilian casualties in the four-and-a-half-year conflict have soared this year, with the number of killed and injured reaching their highest since 2022 last month, according to UN data.

Pope Leo has regularly called for peace in Ukraine and has offered the Vatican as a meeting place for talks, although Russia has called this option “unrealistic.”

Gallagher last visited Moscow in November 2021, several months before Russia sent troops into Ukraine.