• Donald Trump urged Russian leader Vladimir Putin to “stop shooting” in Ukraine and sign a peace deal.
• Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome.
• Trump suggested Zelensky might be ready to give up Crimea as part of a peace agreement.

US President Donald Trump says he wants Russia’s Vladimir Putin to “stop shooting” in Ukraine and sign a peace deal, a day after meeting Ukraine’s President at the Vatican. .

Trump, who boasted before his inauguration that he could halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a day, has launched a diplomatic offensive since taking office to stop the fighting.

Those efforts have so far failed.

“Well, I want him to stop shooting, sit down, and sign a deal,” Trump said in response to a question on what he wanted from Putin.

US President Donald Trump raises a fist as he steps off Air Force One upon arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Photo / AFP

Trump was speaking on the tarmac at Morristown airport before boarding Air Force One bound for Washington, having attended the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome over the weekend.

“We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it,” Trump added, likely referring to a US-proposed peace plan for the three-year conflict in Ukraine.

Trump had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the funeral, where the two leaders spoke face-to-face for the first time since a disastrous televised meeting in the White House in February.

After their brief talk in St Peter’s Basilica, Trump cast doubt over whether Putin wanted an end to the war, which has devastated swaths of eastern Ukraine and killed tens of thousands.

Trump also said he thought Zelensky was ready to give up Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula captured by Russia in 2014, as part of efforts to agree a peace deal.

Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, claimed to have annexed four eastern and southern territories of the war-battered country despite not having full military control over them.

-Agence France-Presse