Putin scheduled to visit Pope Francis July 4

Pope Francis is set to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin for an audience next month, the Vatican said on Thursday.

“The Holy Father will receive the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin… this upcoming July 4,” interim spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said in a statement.

The two leaders first met on Nov. 25, 2013, and again on June 10, 2015. The fact that they are meeting for a third time shows that President Putin considers Pope Francis an influential player and moral authority on the global stage.

Though the agenda for their private conversation is not known, sources say the situations in Ukraine and the Middle East, particularly in Syria and the Holy Land, will be high on the list, since both have political and religious dimensions that are of concern to both sides. Venezuela is also expected to be discussed.

Both leaders have a particular interest in the situation in Ukraine. Pope Francis has invited the major archbishop, the members of the permanent synod and the metropolitans of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to Rome on July 5 and 6.

The fact that they are meeting for a third time shows that Putin considers Pope Francis an influential player and moral authority on the global stage.

“With this meeting, the Holy Father wishes to give a sign of his closeness to the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church that carries out pastoral service both at home and in various places in the world,” the Vatican said in its announcement on May 4.

Moreover, it said, the meeting “will also offer a further opportunity to deepen the analysis of the life and needs of Ukraine, with the aim of identifying the ways in which the Catholic Church, and in particular the Greek-Catholic Church, can dedicate itself ever more effectively to preaching the Gospel, contributing to the support of those who suffer and promoting peace, in agreement, as far as possible, with the Catholic Church of the Latin rite and with other Churches and Christian communities.”

Pope Francis is concerned about the conflict in Ukraine that has gone on for five years and about the failure of the peace agreement reached between Russia and Ukraine in Minsk in February 2015. Some 13,000 people have been killed in the conflict, a quarter of them civilians, and at least 30,000 have been wounded in eastern Ukraine since violence erupted in April 2014, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights stated in a report on Feb. 25. Russia annexed Crimea in early 2014 in breach of international law, which the Holy See insists should be respected.