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 has said he thinks Ukraine would be willing to give up Crimea as part of a peace deal with Russia. Trump said he believed Volodymyr Zelensky was willing to cede control of the Eastern European peninsula which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 to ensure peace in the region.