Leonid Bershidsky: Pope Francis handed Putin a diplomatic victory
Pope Francis leads the Ash Wednesday mass opening Lent, the forty-day period of abstinence and deprivation for Christians, before Holy Week and Easter, on Feb. 10, 2016 in the Vatican.
Russia's state-owned media covered the first-ever meeting between Pope Francis and Kirill, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, as a historic event.
