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KYIV: US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, met one-on-one in a marble-lined Vatican basilica on Saturday to try to revive faltering efforts to end Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Zelensky said the meeting could prove historic if it delivers the kind of peace he is hoping for, and a White House spokesman called it “very productive.”
The two leaders, leaning in close to each other with no aides around them while seated in St. Peter’s Basilica, spoke for about 15 minutes.
The meeting at the Vatican, their first since an angry encounter in the Oval Office in Washington in February, comes at a critical time in negotiations aimed at bringing an end to fighting between Ukraine and Russia.

After leaving Rome, Trump published a social media post in which he took a tough tone on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump posted on Truth Social. Twelve people were killed on Thursday when a missile fired by Russia hit a Kyiv apartment block.
“It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!” Trump wrote.
Trump’s post was a departure from his usual rhetoric, which has seen the toughest criticism directed at Zelensky, while he has spoken positively about Putin.
In a post on social media platform Telegram, Zelensky wrote: “Good meeting. One-on-one, we managed to discuss a lot. We hope for a result from all the things that were spoken about.”
He said those topics included: “The protection of the lives of our people. A complete and unconditional ceasefire. A reliable and lasting peace that will prevent a recurrence of war.”
Zelensky added: “It was a very symbolic meeting that has the potential to become historic if we achieve joint results. Thank you, President Donald Trump!“
Meanwhile, all Ukrainian troops have been forced from parts of Russia’s Kursk region, which Moscow lost control of last year to a surprise Ukrainian incursion, Russia’s top general said in a Kremlin meeting. Ukrainian officials denied the claim.
Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff for Russia’s Armed Forces, gave Russian President Putin the news in a meeting, Peskov told Russian state news outlet Interfax.
In a statement, Putin congratulated the Russian soldiers and commanders and said that Kyiv’s incursion had “completely failed”.
“The complete defeat of our enemy along Kursk’s border region creates the right conditions for further successes for our troops and in other important areas of the front,” he said.
Ukrainian officials, however, said the fighting was still continuing. “The statements of representatives of the high command of the aggressor country about the alleged end of hostilities in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation are not true,” a Ukrainian government statement said.
“The defensive operation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in certain areas in the Kursk region continues. The operational situation is difficult, but our units continue to hold designated positions and carry out assigned tasks, while inflicting effective fire damage on the enemy with all types of weapons, including using active defense tactics,” it added.

ATTARI: Indian business owner Rishi Kumar Jisrani has spent two days watching a messy scramble of people haul suitcases and drop loved ones at the border with Pakistan before it shuts, with dwindling hopes his family will be allowed across.
As relations between Islamabad and New Delhi quickly deteriorate, the neighboring nations have scrapped visas and expelled each other’s citizens, giving people just days to get to the frontier before it closes.
Jisrani, 39, fears it is already too late, with his Pakistani wife and their two children now stuck on the other side.
“They have told her that they can allow my children to come back, since they are Indian passport holders, but not her,” he said, adding that he has received no advice from the Indian side.
“How can we separate a mother from her children?“
Since India accused Pakistan of backing a deadly April 22 attack on tourists in Pahalgam — claims Islamabad denies — the two countries have exchanged gunfire and diplomatic barbs. And at the busy Attari-Wagah border crossing, the fraying ties are painfully tearing apart the many families that straddle the divide.
There were no immediate figures on how many citizens of either nationality are in each other’s country and are expected to cross.
On Saturday, a steady trickle of cars and rickshaws brought those leaving to the border, with relatives waving farewell at a police barricade.
Indian citizen Anees Mohammad, 41, managed to get his 76-year-old aunt, Shehar Bano, to the border just ahead of India’s April 29 deadline to leave.
“She is old and sick and had come here to meet everyone in the family,” said Mohammad, from Indore in India’s Madhya Pradesh state.
Exhausted and emotional, he mopped his brow in the blazing midday heat as he bid his aunt goodbye.
“No one knows when and if we will meet again.”
At the frontier, the cleavage of families has painful historical precedent. The end of British rule in 1947 violently partitioned the sub-continent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
This week’s expulsion orders add to longstanding distress for families of mixed nationalities, who often struggle to obtain visas.
Jisrani said his wife, Savita Kumari, 35, is a Hindu like him and has a long-term Indian visa.
She has previously used that to travel from her home in India to visit her wider family in Pakistan. But that did not make a difference amid the latest tumult.
On Saturday, the hostilities did not appear to be de-escalating. The Indian army said its troops traded gunfire with Pakistan for a second day running, while Islamabad vowed to defend its sovereignty.
Indian doctor Vikram Udasi, 37, said he and his Pakistani wife both rushed to reach the border crossing when the closure was announced, but arrived just too late.
“My wife and our four-year-old boy, Aahan, went there to meet her mother and the rest of the family,” said Udasi.
He has been at the crossing since Friday, while his wife and their child are barred by officers barely a kilometer away.
“They are now stuck on the other side. They are not being allowed back. They are asking my wife to send the child,” he said.
“Please allow them to return. Go ahead, cancel tourist and other short-term visas, but let those with families and long-term visas to return, please.”
He condemned the attack in Kashmir, but despaired of the fallout on ordinary citizens like himself.
“Whatever the issues between the two governments, it is us who are bearing the brunt of it,” he said.
“We are caught in the middle of it, suffering.”