Donald Trump boasted Russia and Ukraine "will make a deal this week" after the warring countries blamed each other for breaking an Easter ceasefire. In a brag on his Truth Social platform, the US President said: "hopefully Russia and Ukraine will make a deal this week" and both will then "start to do big business" with America.

The extraordinary prediction offers a glimmer of hope of ending a bloody and attritional war that erupted after Moscow's invasion in February 2022. Mr Trump said: "Hopefully Russia and Ukraine will make a peace deal this week. Both will then start to do big business with the United States of America, which is thriving, and make a fortune."

The short message comes after Trump said America will "take a pass" on trying to resolve the war if either Moscow or Kyiv makes it too difficult to end the conflict.

His Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had earlier told European allies that Washington would "move on if a truce did not seem doable".

Trump has grown increasingly impatient with painfully slow diplomatic efforts in trying to broker peace of truce talks and the delay in achieving his goal of economic opportunities with mineral-rich Ukraine and Russia.

Mr Rubio, America's top diplomat said the US had presented a framework for a deal on how the war might be ended to the two warring sides, and had tried to pile pressure on Kyiv and Moscow to compromise, saying Washington would pause its efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine if progress isn't made in the coming days.

He said: "So we need to determine very quickly now, and I'm talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks. If it is, we're in. If it's not, then we have other priorities to focus on."

Ukraine has shown inclinations towards agreeing to a comprehensive ceasefire if Russia is also on board. But the Kremlin has dragged its feet and wants cast-iron guarantees "root causes" of the conflict be addressed.

Russia and Ukraine both accused each other of violating a flimsy Easter truce which was agreed over 30-hours from Saturday and announced by Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had carried out hundreds of frontline attacks.

He said Russia has "failed to uphold its own promise of ceasefire", adding: "Either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that in Russia, they have no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war, and are only interested in favourable PR coverage."

Mr Zelensky proposed that Russia "cease any strikes using long-range drones and missiles on civilian infrastructure for a period of at least 30 days, with the possibility of extension".

Without agreeing to this, he said, "it will be proof that it intends to continue doing only those things which destroy human lives and prolong the war".

Mr Zelensky added: "Easter has clearly demonstrated that the only source of this war, and the reason it drags on, is Russia."