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By Joshua McElwee
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked Pope Francis during a meeting at the Vatican on Friday for help in securing the release of Ukrainians held captive by Russia.
Zelenskiy, who is touring major European capitals to discuss his proposed "victory plan" for the war with Russia, said he had also invited the Vatican to take part in a conference on the prisoners-of-war, due to be held in Canada later this month.
"We are counting on the Holy See's assistance in helping to bring back Ukrainians who have been taken captive by Russia," Zelenskiy said in a post on social media, adding this was the main topic of his 35-minute conversation with the pope.
A Vatican readout provided no details about the pope's talks with Zelenskiy, but said a subsequent meeting between the Ukrainian leader and the Vatican's chief diplomat had included discussions "dedicated to the state of the war ... as well as the ways in which it could be brought to an end".
It was Zelenskiy's second face-to-face meeting with Pope Francis in four months. The two men also met on the sidelines of a Group of Seven (G7) summit in southern Italy in June.
At the end of Friday's meeting, Francis gifted Zelenskiy a piece of bronze artwork with a flower growing next to a bird, inscribed with the phrase "Peace is a fragile flower".
Zelenskiy gave the pope an oil painting showing a child amid ruins in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, which was occupied by Russian forces for 33 days in spring 2022.
Ukraine and the West accuse Russian forces of committing war crimes during their occupation of Bucha, which Moscow denies.
WAR AT CRITICAL POINT
Western officials and Zelenskiy have said the war with Russia is at a critical juncture and Ukraine is keen for further support to try to change the balance on the battlefield to put itself in a strong position for eventual peace talks.
The pope drew the ire of Ukrainian officials in March when he suggested they should have the courage of the "white flag" to negotiate an end to the war. At the time Zelenskiy dismissed the pope's remarks as "virtual mediation" from a distance.
Francis, 87, has also criticised Ukrainian lawmakers' plans to ban activities of a Russia-linked branch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which Kyiv accuses of spreading pro-Russian propaganda and of housing spies.
The pope met privately on Thursday with the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. The prelate, based in Kyiv, has been in Rome for a Vatican summit of global bishops.
"I wanted to tell the pope about the disaster of the war and the challenges coming this winter," Shevchuk told the Vatican's media outlet.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee, additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Gareth Jones)
