Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to meet Pope Francis in the Vatican, diplomatic sources say, days after the Pope said the Holy See was involved in a peace mission to try to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The planned trip has not been officially announced.
Pope Francis has given no further information about the peace initiative.
There was no immediate comment from the Kyiv government on reports of the possible trip on Saturday. Mr Zelensky’s office never releases details of his travel plans ahead of time for security reasons.
An Italian political source confirmed that Mr Zelensky might be in Rome at the weekend. If that was the case, he would also see Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is a staunch defender of Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February 2022.
News of the planned visit was first reported by Italy’s Ansa news agency. It said Mr Zelensky was also expected to travel to Germany this weekend.
Since the invasion, the Pope has pleaded for peace practically on a weekly basis, and has repeatedly expressed a wish to act as a broker between Kyiv and Moscow. His offer has so far failed to produce any breakthrough.
Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met the Pope in April and said he had discussed a “peace formula” put forward by Mr Zelensky. He said he had also invited the pontiff to visit Kyiv.
Pope Francis, 86, has said previously that he wants to visit both Kyiv and Moscow on a peace mission.
Tens of thousands have been killed, millions uprooted and whole cities have been flattened during the war in Ukraine.
Bakhmut attacks intensifying, not diminishing: Ukraine
A Ukrainian brigade commander fighting in the ruins of Bakhmut said Russian mercenary forces have stepped up shelling and artillery attacks in recent days and were not facing a munitions shortage, despite its chief’s claims to the contrary.
Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has complained for weeks that Russia’s army is depriving his Wagner troops of enough ammunition to capture the eastern Ukrainian city, where months of fierce fighting have been dubbed the “meat grinder”.
Reuters has not been able to independently confirm the situation on the ground there.
Ukrainian Colonel Roman Hryshchenko, the commander of Ukraine’s 127th Territorial Defence Brigade, rejected Mr Prigozhin’s claims in an interview by video link.
“They haven’t had anything even close to a munitions deficit. In the last few days, the intensity of shelling and rocket artillery has increased,” Colonel Hryshchenko said.
He said Russian forces were conducting constant assaults in the city – and that Ukrainian troops were beating them back.
“The situation is difficult. The enemy is throwing a great deal of its forces at us, constant waves of assaults,” he told Reuters late on Wednesday.
He and the rest of his brigade have inhabited the ruins of Bakhmut for nearly two months, he said.
He messaged shortly after the interview to say the positions where had spoken from had been set ablaze by a strike.
He said Russian forces were suffering casualties several times higher than his unit, but declined to give numbers.
“[Russia] is losing a great deal of its troops… Bakhmut has already fulfilled its main task, and continues to fulfil it. Here, we are butchering the enemy’s manpower,” Colonel Hryshchenko said.
The former military prosecutor said only 30 per cent of his brigade, recruited as a local territorial unit in March 2022 when their home city of Kharkiv was attacked, had previous combat experience but they were now seasoned soldiers.
“They (Russian forces) don’t just retreat by themselves. It’s a big, arduous task, and we need to work very hard to drive them out,” he said.
“For every metre, 10 metres, section of trench, for every building, we need to try very hard.”
Colonel Hryshchenko suggested that news from Bakhmut, of an unspecified nature, would be coming “soon”, smiling but declining to expand.
“I ask everyone to have a little bit of patience, and you will see,” he said.
-AAP
