Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked Pope Francis during a meeting at the Vatican for help in securing the release of Ukrainians held captive by Russia. The Ukrainian president, on a whirlwind tour of European capitals to discuss his proposed “victory plan” for the war with Russia, said he had also invited the Vatican to take part in a conference on the prisoners of war, due to be held in Canada later this month. “We are counting on the Holy See’s assistance in helping to bring back Ukrainians who have been taken captive by Russia,” Zelenskyy said on social media, adding this was the main topic of his talks with the pope on Friday. A Vatican readout provided no details about the pope’s talks with Zelenskyy but said a subsequent meeting between the Ukrainian leader and the Vatican’s chief diplomat had included discussions “dedicated to the state of the war … as well as the ways in which it could be brought to an end”. Zelenskyy voiced hope that the war with Russia would end next year, speaking in Berlin during a visit to ask for sustained military support. Talking to the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the Ukrainian leader thanked Germany for its backing and said it was “very important for us that this assistance does not decrease next year”. He said he would present Scholz with his plan for winning the war, voicing hope that the conflict would end “no later than next year, 2025”. Scholz pledged Germany and European Union partners would send more defence equipment this year, and German aid worth €4bn ($4.4bn) in 2025, vowing that “we will not let up in our support for Ukraine”. A Russian court has ordered the arrest in absentia of a CNN journalist, Nick Paton Walsh, for reporting from Ukrainian-held territory in Russia’s Kursk region. Moscow has launched several criminal proceedings against western journalists who produced reports from the Kursk region after Kyiv’s surprise August incursion, charging them with illegally crossing the border. The Leninsky court in the city of Kursk ordered Paton Walsh’s arrest, demanding his extradition to Russia. The British journalist has previously reported for Channel 4 News and for the Guardian in Moscow. Russia said on Friday its forces had captured the frontline villages of Zhelanne Druge and Ostrivske in eastern Ukraine, the latest in a string of territorial gains for Moscow. Ostrivske lies on the eastern banks of the Kurakhove reservoir in an area where Russia is concentrating its offensive activity, according to the Ukrainian military. The Russian defence ministry said last week that it had captured Zhelanne Druge and it was not immediately clear why it repeated that claim. Ukraine said it was investigating the death in Russian captivity of a Ukrainian journalist whose first-hand reports provided a glimpse into life under Russian occupation early in Moscow’s invasion. Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 after embarking on a reporting trip to occupied eastern Ukraine and Russia acknowledged in April that she was being held. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, confirmed her death on Thursday in what he condemned as illegal detention. Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence, told the public broadcaster Suspilne that Roshchyna had been on a list of prisoners to be exchanged and that “everything necessary had been done” for the swap. The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said it had updated its war crime investigation into her disappearance to include murder. A woman who worked for a Russian tank factory has been convicted of treason and sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in a penal colony for selling military information to Ukraine. Video published by the Sverdlovsk regional court in the Urals region showed a judge on Friday passing sentence on Viktoria Mukhametova, who displayed no emotion. Her husband, Danil Mukhametov, is being tried separately on similar charges. Russian media said the couple both worked at Uralvagonzavod, a major tank producer. Russia sentenced two men in a region near Moscow to 16 years each for setting railways on fire allegedly on the orders of Ukrainian security services. The Ria Novosti news agency reported that the two “young people” – giving only their surnames, Zavalnov and Golodyuk – in the Kaluga region south of Moscow were found guilty of “terrorism” and sentenced in a military court for setting fire to operating equipment on the side of railway tracks. Finnish officials said police suspected a Russian citizen of committing war crimes in Ukraine in 2014 and he was expected to face charges before the end of the month. Vojislav Torden – a commander of the Russian far-right, neo-Nazi paramilitary Rusich group – was detained at Helsinki airport in July 2023. Finland’s national bureau of investigation said on Friday it had completed a investigation into several offences dating back to 2014 and suspected Torden of several war crimes, including an “aggravated war crime”.