Russian foreign minister says Vatican-led peace talks ‘inelegant’ amid reports of Kremlin disinterest

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed Washington’s proposal to hold ceasefire talks in the Vatican as “a bit inelegant” at a conference in Moscow on Friday, state news agency TASS has reported.

“Imagine the Vatican as a venue for negotiations, it’s a bit inelegant, I would say, for Orthodox countries to be on a Catholic platform,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov’s comments followed a Bloomberg report on Thursday which said the Kremlin was disinterested in the Vatican-led talks for several reasons, including the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church opposes the Holy See’s assistance.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, Russian officials do not foresee Vladimir Putin travelling to the Vatican or anywhere else for talks. Instead, Moscow is focused on continuing the technical negotiations that took place in Istanbul last week.

Despite this, European officials have continued to suggest that the Vatican could play mediator or organiser in future peace talks, while the US is seeking Ukraine’s agreement to another round of discussions. According to sources cited by Bloomberg, these talks could be held as early as next week depending on Russia’s readiness to attend.

In addition, Bloomberg noted, Washington has signalled to Moscow that it would prefer if hardliners such as Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky did not take part in future meetings. Last week, as Kyiv and Moscow held Istanbul their first direct talks in over three years, Russia made a number of demands that a Ukrainian source described to Reuters as “non-starters” and “far beyond anything” that was previously discussed by the two sides.

For now, there are “no agreements” to hold future talks at the Vatican, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday. According to three sources close to the Kremlin cited by Bloomberg, Russia still sees Türkiye as the best venue for negotiations over conditions for a peace deal.

Since Monday’s two-hour phone call between US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which ended without a Russian pledge to halt hostilities, discussions have turned towards efforts to involve the Holy See in future negotiations over the conflict. On Tuesday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced that Pope Leo XIV had offered the Vatican as a venue for future ceasefire talks.

The Holy See has a history of participating in international conflict mediation, including helping with the normalisation of US-Cuba relations in 2014 and long-standing peace efforts between Israel and Palestine. Italy, a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC), would be theoretically obliged to arrest Putin if he came to Rome, due to the ICC’s March 2023 arrest warrant for his alleged war crimes in Ukraine.