ROME (AP) — Ukraine has asked the Vatican to formalize its role facilitating negotiations over the return of Ukrainian children and civilians taken by Russia during the nearly four-year war, a Kyiv government official said Wednesday.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the request in a letter to Pope Leo XIV ahead of an audience Friday between the pope and a delegation of returned Ukrainian children and civilians.

The letter asked that Leo formalize the informal arrangement launched by Pope Francis in which an Italian cardinal, Matteo Zuppi, had served as a personal papal envoy for humanitarian issues.

“To be able to achieve more, we need to formalize this process in the Vatican, and this is why this request now comes officially,” said the deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office, Iryna Vereshc

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