VATICAN CITY: United States President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a “very productive” meeting on Saturday (Apr 26) in Rome, a White House official said, as both leaders attended the funeral of Pope Francis.
A spokesman for Zelenskyy’s office confirmed that the meeting with Trump had taken place, but gave no further details.
The meeting, their first since an angry encounter in the Oval Office in Washington in February, comes at a critical time in negotiations aimed at bringing an end to fighting between Ukraine and Russia.
“President Trump and President Zelenskyy met privately today and had a very productive discussion. More details about the meeting will follow,” said Steven Cheung, White House communications director.
Trump, who has been pressing both sides to agree to a ceasefire, said on Friday that there had been productive talks between his envoy and the Russian leadership, and called for a high-level meeting between Kyiv and Moscow to close a deal.
Trump had previously warned his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides did not agree to a deal soon.
After a round of shuttle diplomacy this week, differences have emerged between the position of the Trump White House on peace talks and the stance of Ukraine and its European allies, according to documents from the talks obtained by Reuters.
Washington is proposing a legal recognition that Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, is Russian territory, something that Kyiv and its allies in Europe say is a red line they will not cross.
There are also differences on how quickly sanctions on Russia would be lifted if a peace deal is signed, what kind of security guarantees Ukraine would have and how Ukraine would be financially compensated.
At the Oval Office meeting in February, as Trump and Vice President JD Vance accused the Ukrainian leader of being ungrateful for US support, a reporter who was present from a conservative US news network accused Zelenskyy of disrespecting the occasion by not wearing a suit.
Zelenskyy, since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, has eschewed suits in favour of military-style attire, saying it is his way of showing solidarity with his countrymen fighting to defend Ukraine.
In Rome on Saturday, Zelenskyy again decided against a suit, and instead wore a dark shirt, buttoned up to the neck with no tie, and wore a dark military-style jacket over the top of that.
