VATICAN CITY (NYTIMES) - Pope Francis has defended his decision to not directly name President Vladimir Putin of Russia in his repeated condemnations of the war in Ukraine, and said that he was ready to do "everything" so "there will not be one more death in Ukraine".

"A pope never names a head of state, much less a country, which is superior to its head of state," Pope Francis said in an interview published on Thursday (April 21) by the Argentine newspaper La Nacion.

In the interview, the Pope said that the Vatican's behind-the-scenes efforts to stop the war were continuous.

"The Vatican never rests," Pope Francis said. "I cannot tell you the details because they would no longer be diplomatic efforts. But the attempts will never cease."

This month, Reuters reported that such diplomatic efforts might include a June visit in Jerusalem with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, after a two-day visit to Lebanon.

The Vatican has not officially announced the trip, but it has been confirmed by the Lebanese presidency.

But in the Nacion interview, Pope Francis said that while his relations with Patriarch Kirill were "very good," his plans to meet with the patriarch, who has supported Russia's war in Ukraine, had been suspended because Vatican diplomats "understood that a meeting between the two at this time could lend itself to many confusions".

It would have been their second meeting. Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill met in 2016 in Havana, where Pope Francis became the first pontiff to ever meet a patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, an ecumenical and diplomatic coup that had eluded his predecessors.

The roots of the East-West split in Christianity can be traced to the Schism of 1054.

Pope Francis also said in the interview that he had not yet visited Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, like some Western leaders have, because he feared jeopardising "higher objectives, which are the end of the war, a truce or at least a humanitarian corridor".

"What would be the use of the Pope going to Kyiv if the war continues the next day?" he said.