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.

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.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he is beginning to question whether Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to end the Russia-Ukraine war, a warning shot to the Russian leader that came just after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Rome.