Sharjah 24 – AFP: Pope Francis said in an interview published Tuesday that he requested a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, while comparing the scale of the bloodshed to Rwanda's genocide.

The pontiff told Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper that he had sent a message to Putin around 20 days into the conflict saying that "I was willing to go to Moscow".

"We have not yet received a response and we are still insisting, though I fear that Putin cannot, and does not, want to have this meeting at this time," Francis said.

"But how is it possible to not stop such brutality? Twenty-five years ago, we lived through the same thing with Rwanda," he said.

The pope has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine and denounced a "cruel and senseless war" without mentioning Putin or Moscow by name.

"I'm not going to Kyiv for now. I feel I shouldn't go. I have to go to Moscow first, I have to meet Putin first," he said.

Francis also said Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a close Putin ally, "cannot become Putin's altar boy".

Dialogue with the Orthodox Church, which separated from the Catholic Church in 1054, is a priority of Francis's pontificate.

In the interview, the pope also addressed the pain in his knee that has forced him to cancel various public engagements in recent months.

"I have a torn ligament, I will undergo an intervention with infiltration, and we'll see," he said.