Donald Trump has questioned Vladimir Putin’s willingness to end the Ukraine war after meeting Volodymyr Zelensky during Pope Francis’s funeral in Rome.

US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held crunch war talks in the heart of the Vatican minutes before the start of the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, as the White House mounts an increasingly urgent push to strike a peace deal in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday he believed Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was prepared to cede Crimea to Russia as part of a ceasefire deal, as truce talks entered what Washington called a critical phase.