Zelenskyy, Starmer, Macron … they all had his ear at Pope Francis’s funeral. But he is just as easily swayed by the elevator doorman

The most recent diplomatic effort to find a way to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took place at the most unlikely of events: the funeral of Pope Francis. The image of Presidents Zelenskyy and Trump leaning toward each other, under Carlo Maratta’s late-17th-century painting, The Baptism of Christ, rekindled hopes that the US might, at last, hear Kyiv out. Would this unexpected setting make Trump’s compassion, so frequently expressed for the loss of human life, real? And could it lead to a better strategy for ending this criminal and brutal war?

The goal of Kyiv and the coalition of the willing – a group of 31 nations that back Ukraine in its fight against Russia – is to distance Trump from what has become a dangerous rapprochement between the Washington and Moscow. But this will be an uphill battle – Europe and Kyiv are trying to fight their way to Trump’s ear just when the US is backing Russia’s position.