Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has met with Pope Leo XIV and thanked him for the Vatican’s efforts to help return children taken by Russia during the war.

According to an official statement from the Holy See, the two leaders discussed the ongoing conflict and “the urgency of pursuing just and lasting paths of peace.”

Pope Leo XIV is a member of the Order of Saint Augustine, the oldest monastic order, and as Prior General of the order, he attended a beatification ceremony held in Nagasaki in 2008. During that visit,