The United States President, Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky met briefly in the hush of St Peter’s basilica on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday in their first encounter since a noisy White House clash, as Trump pushes the Ukrainian leader to make a peace deal with Russia.
“President Trump and President Zelensky met privately today and had a very productive discussion. More details about the meeting will be shared soon,” said White House Communications Director Steven Cheung.
Trump and Zelensky were pictured sitting locked in deep discussion, minutes before Pope Francis’ funeral was due to start.
The meeting came a day after Trump said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal”, following talks between his envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.
Posting on social media, Zelensky said they’d had a “good meeting. We discussed a lot one on one”, adding that he hoped for results on everything they had said.
He said it was a “very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results”.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also posted the image on X with the caption: “No words are needed to describe the importance of this historic meeting. Two leaders working for peace in St. Peter’s Basilica.”
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