On 16 February, President Edgars Rinkēvičs met with the Secretary of the Holy See, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, in Munich. During the meeting, the parties discussed the bilateral dialogue between Latvia and the Holy See, as well as Russia's war against Ukraine and the situation in Belarus. The meeting took place in the margins of the Munich Security Conference.
During the meeting, E. Rinkēvičs urged the Holy See to take an active role in the return of Ukrainian children who were abducted by Russia from Russia, the territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by Russia and Belarus. The President of Latvia informed that a conference on 'Russia's war on children' was held in Riga at the end of January with the participation of the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, to raise international awareness on this issue.
