By Elise Ann Allen

ROME – As the Vatican attempts to engage both Ukrainian and Russian officials amid ongoing efforts to secure a ceasefire, Pope Francis is sending four ambulances to Ukraine filled with medical supplies for Easter.

In an April 7 communique, the Papal Almoner’s Office said that in keeping with the pope’s continued prayers for peace in Ukraine, he is again sending his Almoner, Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, to Ukraine “to donate four ambulances.”

These ambulances will be “equipped with every medical instrument necessary to save human lives,” and will be sent directly to war zones, the statement said.

Cardinal Krajewski will drive one of the ambulances, and three drivers from Ukraine will drive the others, “to be with the people so tried by the conflict, to pray with them and to be an expression of the pope’s closeness.”

This will mark Krajewski’s tenth visit to Ukraine since the war erupted after Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, sparking a full-blown war eight years after annexing the peninsula of Crimea and invading Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

So far, an estimated 120,000 people have died in the war, and close to 200,000 have been injured, whereas some 3.7 million Ukrainians are internally displaced, and around 6.7 million have sought refuge abroad.

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According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), an estimated 12.7 million people in Ukraine will require humanitarian assistance this year.

In their communique, the papal almoner’s office quoted Pope Francis’s Easter Urbi et Orbi address in 2024, saying, it is only Jesus who “‘opens the doors of life, those doors that we continually close with the wars that are spreading throughout the world.”

These words, the office said, “become an action to break down closures and to bring the light of Easter into the dark of darkness.”

“For this reason, in this time of Easter rebirth, the pope wanted to make a gesture of closeness in one of the most painful places and where war has raged for three years: the tormented Ukraine,” it said, noting that for three years, the pope has referred to Feb. 24 as a “painful and shameful anniversary for humanity.”

Pope Francis continually prays for peace in Ukraine in his Sunday Angelus addresses, his Wednesday general audience texts, and in other appeals for peace, also calling for an end to other global conflicts, including those in Gaza, Myanmar, Kivu and Sudan.

This mission for Krajewski, the almoner’s office said, quoting the Bull of Indiction of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope, Spes non Confundit, illustrates that “the first sign of hope is translated into peace for the world, which once again finds itself immersed in the tragedy of war.”

“The need for peace challenges everyone and requires the pursuit of concrete projects,” it said, saying, “the gift of the four ambulances thus becomes a sign of Jubilee hope anchored in Christ.”

Pope Francis’s decision to donate more ambulances, one of which will be personally delivered by Cardinal Krajewski, at Easter comes after several moves on the Vatican’s part to engage both Russian and Ukrainian officials in ceasefire talks, as well as in the provision of humanitarian relief.

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On April 4, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, British Archbishop Paul Gallagher, had a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Among the topics discussed, the Vatican said, was “the overall picture of world politics,” with particular attention to “the situation of the war in Ukraine and some initiatives aimed at stopping the military actions.”

Presumably, the call also touched on the current trade war waged by United States President Donald Trump, who has slapped crippling tariffs on countries throughout the world and brought global stock markets to the brink of a recession.

Archbishop Gallagher and Lavrov’s conversation came after a March 14 phone call between the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which the two addressed a variety of topics, including prisoner exchanges and the return of Ukrainian children.

Pope Francis in April 2023 confirmed publicly that the Holy See had assisted in several prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia, and they have continued to do so.

Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, whom the pope names as his special peace envoy for Ukraine in 2023, has made the return of Ukrainian children and prisoner exchanges, in particular, a priority in the Vatican’s mediation efforts, as well as addressing humanitarian needs on the ground.

Cardinal Zuppi in this capacity made trips to Kyiv, Moscow, Washington D.C. and Beijing in the summer of 2023.

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Russia and Ukraine last month agreed to a limited truce barring rocket attacks against each other’s’ energy infrastructure, however, both parties have accused the other of violating the agreement, which was brokered by the United States despite a disastrous meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump at the White House March 11.

The Holy See’s efforts in recent weeks to engage both sides of the conflict, notably though official diplomatic channels, rather than Cardinal Zuppi, coupled with this new humanitarian mission from Cardinal Krajewski indicates that the Vatican is keen to have a voce in capitolo, meaning it wants a say in how things go down, and the pope’s team is trying to carve out space to do that on all fronts.