It was unclear what part Pope Francis played in efforts to arrange a prisoner exchange in Ukraine, but he claimed to have been involved in those efforts.
The Pope discussed his initiatives with the Jesuits last week during a meeting in Kazakhstan, according to the Jesuit Catholic journal La Chivelta Cattolica.
The pope claimed that Ukrainian citizens and authorities visited him frequently and updated him on the conflict.
A military official who was interested in the prisoner exchange issues and who presented the Pope a list of more than 300 inmates was among the visitors. The military officer “asked him to do something to make the exchange feasible,” the pope claimed, and he continued, “I immediately called the Russian envoy to see if something could be done, if it was possible to speed up the exchange of detainees.
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Following earlier swaps at the beginning of the war, Ukrainian and Russian forces last week exchanged roughly 300 prisoners of war.
On September 15, in Kazakhstan, following a gathering of international religious leaders, the Pope specifically met with the Jesuits.
The Pope discloses his involvement in the initiatives to coordinate a prisoner exchange in Ukraine.
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