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 cast doubt on whether Russian leader Vladimir Putin wants a peace deal, shortly after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the hush of St Peter’s Basilica before Pope Francis’s funeral Saturday.

Zelensky used the funeral of Pope Francis to launch a diplomatic blitz to head off a U.S. proposal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine on terms favorable to Moscow.