The US and European leaders are placing their hopes in the Vatican to engage Russia and Ukraine in peace talks, after President Donald Trump said Pope Leo XIV had expressed interest in the idea. The Kremlin isn’t so keen.

Moscow has played down the idea of the Vatican being a potential location for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, calling it a "fantasy" that many people are talking about.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cast doubt on Friday over the Vatican as a potential location for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, saying that the Holy See itself would find it uncomfortable to host two mainly Orthodox Christian nations.

A Kremlin spokesman says Russia and Ukraine have no scheduled direct peace talks. The statement Thursday came nearly a week after their first face-to-face meeting since the early weeks of Moscow's invasion in 2022 and days after U.

The announcement was made ahead of an expected prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia on Friday – an outcome of last week’s face-to-face talks in Turkey, the first time the two countries have held direct talks at any level in three years.

It follows Donald Trump saying Russia and Ukraine will "immediately" start negotiating, after a two-hour phone call with Vladimir Putin.

Kyiv’s European allies have slapped new sanctions on Moscow, a day after a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to produce a breakthrough on ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine.

Gold prices eased on Tuesday, as a slightly firmer dollar and optimism over a potential ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine dampened investor demand for safe-haven assets.