Pope Leo XIV calls for international talks to end the Ukraine war

Pope Leo XIV has called for new international efforts to talk about ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. “We must call on the heads of state and government of Russia, Ukraine and other countries to meet, sit down at the table, talk to each other,” said the head of the Catholic Church on the flight home from his trip to France.

He said his goal was to "find solutions to these problems - instead of insisting on wars that no longer make sense." The Russian war of aggression against its neighboring country has been going on for more than four and a half years. The Vatican's mediation efforts have not yet brought any progress. The pope made the remarks to journalists on the plane that brought him back to Rome after four days in France.

Leo once again warned of a new arms race. “We spend huge sums of money on this massive arms industry: an industry from which a small elite makes enormous profits by promoting wars. These billions of euros or dollars could be used to solve problems such as world hunger, housing shortages and unemployment.