ROME, July 4. /TASS/. Papal peace envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi said on Tuesday that he and Pope Francis have discussed his recent visit to Moscow where he met with Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill and Russian presidential foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov.
"Yes, I spoke with the Pope," he told journalists, adding that the central topic of this talk was the return of Ukrainian children from Russia. "We must understand the mechanism and begin to act as soon as possible," said Zuppi, who is President of the Italian Bishops' Conference and Archbishop of Bologna.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier that Moscow makes no secret of the names of children who were evacuated to Russia from the areas of combat operations and many of them have returned to their families. "I can only confirm what our president has repeatedly stated: All the children that are now on Russian territory, they are all known, nobody is hiding their names. Nobody is hiding their whereabouts. And if these children have parents or direct relatives, they have every right to take these children away, which is already being done and has been done more than once. Several dozen children returned to their relatives when they showed up," he said.
During his visit to the Vatican in May, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky asked Pope Francis to help return Ukrainian children.