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.

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.