The first American-born pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, will offer Russia and Ukraine to host their talks to broker a peace deal at the Vatican, a top Catholic official said.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s secretary of state, told reporters in Rome that the new pope is willing to offer the Vatican as a venue for direct talks between the two parties, if necessary.

“It is an offer of a location,” he said.

Leo, formerly known as Cardinal Robert Prevost before his election last week to succeed the late Pope Francis as head of the Catholic Church, called for peace in Ukraine during his first Sunday blessing.

Addressing world leaders, he echoed the enduring appeal, “never again war.”He also spoke by phone with president Volodymyr Zelensky last Sunday.

Russia threatened Ukraine with “eternal war” during their peace talks in Turkey, a source in the Ukrainian delegation told Sky News.

The person who was not named said Russians were reluctant to talk about the technical details of a ceasefire and awaited superiors’ approval.

Russia said on Friday that the first direct talks with Ukraine in more than three years had yielded a deal to swap 1,000 prisoners of war each soon and to resume talks after each side had set out its vision for a future ceasefire.

Previously, a Ukrainian source said Kyiv was not satisfied with the talks as Moscow made “unrealistic” demands.

The Prime Minister said he and European allies spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump on Friday to begin “closely aligning” a response to Russia’s “unacceptable” position in Ukraine peace talks.

Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Zelensky and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland held a phone call with the US president to discuss “developments” in the negotiations on Friday, he said.

The talks in Istanbul lasted less than two hours and the sides agreed to the biggest prisoner exchange since the start of the war in 2022.

Sir Keir said the prisoner swap was “obviously a good thing” but that “we need to be really clear in putting the pressure on for a ceasefire”.

After the phone call, he told reporters in Tirana, Albania: “We just had a meeting with President Zelensky and then a phone call with President Trump to discuss the developments in the negotiations today.

“And the Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time.

“So as a result of that meeting with President Zelensky and that call with President Trump we are now closely aligning our responses and will continue to do so.”

A colonel general dubbed "General Breakthrough" for distinguishing himself in key battles in Moscow's more than three-year-old war in Ukraine has been appointed head of Russia's land forces, the daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta said.

The government daily said Andrei Mordvichev was born in 1976 in what was then Soviet Kazakhstan and last year was decorated as a Hero of Russia, the country's highest award.

Mordvichev, previously head of the Central Military District, commanded operations that led to the 2022 surrender of Ukrainian units holding out in the Azovstal steelworks after a siege of about 80 days in the southern port of Mariupol.

In 2024, he led Russian troops capturing the mining centre of Avdiivka in Donetsk region on the war's eastern front, a key operation in a town where Ukrainian authorities had for years built up fortifications.

Rossiiskaya Gazeta said he also led Russian forces in retaking three key towns in their slow advance westward through Donetsk region - Selydove, Kurakhove and Ukrainsk.

Earlier in his career, he had also taken part in conflicts in Syria.

Mordvichev takes over from army general Oleg Salyukov, replaced as head of ground forces on Thursday by a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin.

Salyukov, 69, was appointed deputy secretary of the Security Council, the Kremlin's top consultative body, chaired by Putin, and which is responsible for managing and integrating national security policy.

US senator have renewed calls for Congress to pass sanctions on Russia after Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks showed little progress, but no votes were scheduled on bills introduced six weeks ago aimed at pressuring Moscow to negotiate seriously.

Kyiv and Moscow's first direct talks in more than three years on Friday ended in well under two hours, with Russia presenting conditions that a Ukrainian source described as "non-starters."

Russian President Vladimir "Putin will continue stonewalling and slow-walking ceasefire efforts till his economy is hit hard -- isolating it on a financial island," Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said in a statement urging a vote on sanctions legislation.

Blumenthal and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a bill on 1 April that is intended to make it more difficult for Russia to fund its war by adding provisions like a 500% tariff on imports to the U.S. from countries that buy Russian energy.

The Senate bill now has at least 73 co-sponsors in the 100-member chamber, although leaders have not indicated when it might be brought up for a vote. A similar measure introduced the same day in the House of Representatives has 28 co-sponsors, also from both parties.

Graham, who was in Turkey for a Nato foreign ministers meeting this week, called for the bill's passage, criticizing Putin's decision not to attend the talks with Ukraine.

"When it comes to Russia’s games, enough is enough," Graham said in a statement.

Testy start to the day in Istanbul…

• Early this morning, the foreign ministers of Ukraine, the US and Turkey held talks in Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace, discussions which were supposed to immediately precede Ukraine-Russia-Turkey talks.
• Ukraine accused them of ‘undermining’ the talks by demanding that US and Turkish representatives do not partake on Friday. Meanwhile the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, held an unexpected meeting with a US government official.
• The talks begin around one hour late. It wasn’t long before a Ukrainian source said Russia is making demands which are “detached from reality”, and a senior official said Moscow made “unacceptable demands” that had not previously been raised.
• Mr Medinsky later says that Kyiv and Moscow agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners of war each in the coming days.

750 kilometres west of the peace talks…

• Volodymyr Zelensky met dozens of EU leaders for a major summit in Tirana, Albania. He called for a “strong reaction” if Russia did not agree to a ceasefire.
• After the peace talks in Istanbul concluded, Mr Zelensky, along with the leaders of the UK, France, Germany and Poland, held a phone call with Donald Trump.
• Sir Keir Starmer said that the group of European leaders agreed with Mr Zelensky that Russia’s position was “unacceptable”, and that this had been conveyed to the US president.

Elsewhere…

• Earlier in the day, Donald Trump had discussed the prospect of meeting Vladimir Putin, which he yesterday said was necessary for progress in Ukraine peace talks. They will be held “as soon as we can set it up”, he claimed.
• Other meetings were held in Istanbul. Ukrainian officials met senior US, French British and German aides, while US secretary of state Marco Rubio met the national security advisers of the UK, France and Germany.
• Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV has offered the Vatican for future peace talks, according to Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK and allies must continue to heap pressure on Vladimir Putin as his actions this week show he is “not serious” about peace in Ukraine.

“The prisoner swaps is obviously a good thing that’s been agreed today, and the fact that talks continue, but I think we need to be really clear in putting the pressure on for a ceasefire.

“And I’m very keen to continue to put that pressure on, because we need to make sure that Putin comes to the table, but his actions this week still show me that he’s not serious yet about peace.”