Amid attacks, Ukraine's religious leaders plead for Pope Leo's help in returning abducted children

KYIV (OSV News) -- Ukraine's religious leaders have appealed to Pope Leo XIV for his continued help in returning thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war, hostages and deported children, as deadly Russian attacks on Kyiv and other cities in that nation continue to claim civilian lives amid stalled global peace negotiations.

The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations issued an Aug. 26 letter to the pope, thanking him for his "consistent stance in defense of a just peace, his support for ending the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, and his efforts to address the humanitarian problems in Ukraine caused by the war," according to the group's website.

The letter came just a day ahead of massive Aug. 27-28 Russian attacks throughout Ukraine, in which at least 19 people, among them four children, were killed in Kyiv alone, with others feared to be still trapped under rubble.

Russia hurled almost 600 drones and 31 missiles in the course of the attack, which Keith Kellogg, President Donald Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, described in an Aug. 28 X post as "outrageous," "egregious" and a threat to Trump's peace pursuit.

In a separate statement on the Aug. 27-28 attacks, UCCRO said that they represented "criminal actions of the Russian regime, which once again confirmed the genocidal policy of the terrorist state."

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched in 2022 and continuing attacks initiated in 2014, has been declared a genocide in two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

A number of human rights entities, including the United Nations, have documented systematic atrocities and violations of multiple international laws, including the Geneva and Genocide Conventions, the U.N. Charter, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

At least 19,546 Ukrainian children -- and, by Russia's own admission, as many as 700,000 -- have been forcibly transferred to Russian control, with many subjected to abuse, "patriotic reeducation," militarization and adoption by Russian families.

"The Ukrainian people are enduring massive human losses, the destruction of cities and villages, the deportation and unlawful displacement of Ukrainian children, and are experiencing one of the gravest humanitarian catastrophes in Europe since the Second World War," said UCCRO in its letter to Pope Leo.

In that message, UCCRO also stressed that "one of the most painful issues remains the detention of thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian hostages in captivity on the territory of the Russian Federation."

The religious leaders also warned in their Aug. 28 statement that "any support now revealed to the Russian Federation is the same as support for murderers and thieves, which entails obvious moral responsibility.

"The money earned from business with the Russian Federation is now stained with the blood of innocently murdered people, and this blood cries out to Heaven for just revenge," said UCCRO in its Aug. 28 post-attack statement.

The group added, "We express our gratitude to all religious figures, believers of various denominations and people of good will for the support of the Ukrainian people, prayers for the cessation of Russian military aggression and the establishment of a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine and Europe."