“Each day is becoming more difficult, but we do not surrender,” Father Igor Boyko, 48, the rector of the Greek Catholic seminary in Lviv, told Gerard O’Connell. “To surrender means we are finished.”

Pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy focused their discussion on the repatriation of Ukrainian nationals held in Russian captivity.

Pope Francis will welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy back to the Vatican Oct. 11.

During the Aug. 25 recitation of the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis expressed his concern over a recent Ukrainian law that proscribed the Russian Orthodox Church.

There are no simple answers as to how to end a war. Benedict XV’s prophetic but ignored call for “a stable peace honorable to all” in World War I should be an example for Pope Francis.

Reports are already surfacing of drones launched into Russia that are relying on artificial, not human, intelligence in decisions to evade defensive countermeasures, pick targets and finally conclude a strike.