From Pope Leo XIV and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin to Italian Prime Minister Meloni and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, intense maneuverings are underway to see if the peace process can be relaunched in Rome.

A flurry of diplomacy over Russia’s war against Ukraine, centered around the first direct peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow in three years and a long phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin,

The first direct talks between Ukraine and Russia should have heralded a new era of diplomacy towards solving Europe’s largest conflict since World War II. Instead, their context, brevity and limited outcome provided skeptics with more reasons to doubt Moscow wants peace.

If a country wants to help end the Russia-Ukraine conflict through ceasefire, dialogue and diplomacy, it has to treat the other side, despite the other side being its "adversary", respectfully, instead of issuing threats and ultimatums.

On the night of March 5, an explosive weapon slammed into the Tsentralnyi Hotel in the southeastern city of Kryvyi Rih. It damaged not just the hotel but many residential buildings in the area, killing 6 civilians and injuring 31.

Trump proposed in a statement on social media that Pope Leo XIV host delegations in Vatican City and play a mediating role in establishing a ceasefire.

On Ukraine peace talks, the Kremlin has played for time through deflections and side-steps, writes the BBC's Steve Rosenberg.

But the two sides failed to broker a temporary cease-fire or a meeting between their two leaders, a sign of how far apart they remain on ending the conflict.

Trump’s critics blame him for Ukraine’s war, but it’s Biden’s blunders—NATO talk, weak deterrence, and failed diplomacy—that made peace nearly impossible.