Pope Francis has sent Cardinal Konrad Krajewski back to Ukraine to deliver four ambulances, according to a statement from the Dicastery for the Service of Charity on April 7, 2025. This is the tenth mission of the cardinal prefect of the dicastery since the Russian invasion in February 2022.
The Papal Almoner, along with two priests and a bishop who minister in Ukraine, have driven 4 ambulances to the country on the pope's behalf.
At the age of 61, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski has once again headed off to Ukraine at the wheel of an ambulance intended for war zones. Three other drivers, all of them clergy working in Ukraine (two priests and a bishop), are making the journey with him. The four vehicles are all equipped with “medical instruments necessary to save lives,” according to the Office of Papal Charities.
The Polish cardinal, who has been working at the Vatican since 1998, will remain several days in Ukraine “to be close to the population, which has been severely affected by the conflict” and to “express the Pope's closeness.”
Putting hope into practice
For the Office of Papal Charities, the entity that coordinates charitable activities on behalf of the Pope, the donation of these four ambulances is part of the Jubilee of Hope celebrated by the Catholic Church in 2025. “The first sign of hope should be the desire for peace in our world, which once more finds itself immersed in the tragedy of war,” wrote Francis in the Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee, Spes non Confundit.
In total, Cardinal Krajewski has visited Ukraine ten times since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country on February 24, 2022. By March 2022, he had been there twice, including to deliver the first ambulance donated by Pope Francis.
During his fourth trip, in September 2022, he was shot at while in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia to deliver food and rosaries on behalf of Pope Francis.
In December 2024, Cardinal Krajewski spent Christmas in Ukraine. The previous year, he had celebrated the birth of Christ in the Holy Land. He had gone to show the Pope's support for a region traumatized by the Hamas attack of October 7 and the Israeli response in the Gaza Strip.
