Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, received a very special assignment in May of last year. Pope Francis, who counts him among his most trusted men, asked him to carry out a mediation mission to help reduce tensions in the Ukraine conflict. The Pontiff thus revealed what he had already said during the press conference aboard the papal plane returning from Budapest: that he was on a secret mission from the Vatican to try to lend a hand in an entrenched war in Europe.

Shortly after, the man appointed by Francis traveled to Kyiv and Moscow. He also went to Washington and Beijing. One of the priorities of the Holy See, in addition to studying whether there was a space for dialogue, was the return home of the thousands of Ukrainian children who were forcibly taken to Russia. The operations have been carried out with enormous discretion, and the nuncio (Vatican ambassador) in Ukraine, Visvaldas Kulvokas, assured in an interview a few weeks ago that attempts to propose mediation mechanisms continue. “When you understand that one format does not work, you start looking for another and do some checks. “It is continuous work,” he indicated, explaining that they are currently working on the case of about a hundred children and intend to help another 4,000.

Two years after the outbreak of war, Pope Francis’ attempt to present himself as a mediator to help in the conflict has not given the expected results. “These Vatican mediations only work if there is a desire for peace and the two sides lack a space to start negotiations. Many times the Vatican provides that space that is missing in international politics. Now, there is simply no desire for peace. The most important thing is to have a presence, so that when the time comes there is that space,” says the pontiff’s biographer Austen Ivereigh, author of a new book that will be released in the fall in Spain.

“In reality, the mission did not come to fruition because there was a lot of good will, but it was quickly seen that it could not be because neither of the two parties accepted it. It is true that they are operations that are carried out with great discretion, but if there had been some result it would have appeared and that has not been the case, unfortunately,” agrees Giovanni Maria Vian, expert in Church history and former director of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. Vian compares the role of the Vatican in Kyiv, led by a cardinal that the Italians include in the list of papals, with the mediation that it carried out between Cuba and the United States. “On that occasion it was very effective, but it was carried out done with a totally different method. The diplomacy of the Holy See was involved, that is, the Secretariat of State, the diplomats and the episcopates of both countries. Here diplomacy has practically not intervened because the Pope has had a direct role.”

Some improvised words from the Pontiff have not contributed to the Holy See being seen as a possible mediator between the two parties. In fact, he has been accused of being too equidistant, something that has lowered the Pope’s popularity ratings in Ukraine, where he is seen as pro-Russian, from 45% before the aggression to 6%. Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the Vatican was somewhat cold. Although in two years Francis has not stopped asking for peace for the “martyred Ukraine” and has defended the country’s role as a victim, on some occasions his statements have angered Kyiv. In summer, for example, he unleashed a storm by improvising in a speech to some young Russians his admiration for “great Russia” and reminding them that they were heirs of tsars like Peter the Great, who invaded part of Sweden and Finland, and with whom Vladimir Putin has compared himself to justify the offensive in Ukraine. Later, the Vatican was forced to emphasize that the pontiff was referring to the Russian cultural heritage, and did not intend to “exalt imperialist logic and government personalities.” He also raised eyebrows in Ukraine when he spoke of the car bomb murder of Darya Dugina, daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, ideologue of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as another “innocent victim” of the war.