Ukrainian leader Voldymi Zelensky declared that a meeting with President Donald Trump, a bystander at Pope Francis’ funeral, could be “historic.”
Zelensky joined other world leaders in honor of the Pope and met President Trump at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Photos from the meeting show Trump and Zelensky sitting against each other in chairs in the Grand 16th century church.
The conference has so far been humiliated in a peace framework laid out by Trump administration negotiators amid growing tensions between Washington and Kiev.
The White House said that a meeting between the two leaders will be held for about 15 minutes, “very productive,” with details being made public later Saturday.
Zelensky said for his party, “Good meeting. We discussed a lot one-on-one. We hope for all the outcomes we covered. We will protect the lives of our people. A complete and unconditional ceasefire. A reliable and lasting peace.
“A very iconic meeting that could be historic if we achieved joint results. Thank you. [President Trump]. ”
Earlier in the week, President Trump once again was critical of Zelensky, claiming that Ukrainian leaders are ready to sign a peace agreement.”
This comes after Zelensky publicly criticized reported aspects of the Trump team’s moot framework. Ukraine has argued that the territory is still justified despite the fact that the peninsula was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014 and has not controlled the area for more than a decade.
President Trump said under Obama that “Crimea was lost years ago,” and that Zelensky’s comments on Ukraine’s Crimea ownership were “very harmful to peace negotiations.”
High-ranking Washington officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, warned that the Trump administration would withdraw from the negotiation table if the agreement was not reached.
However, when he landed in Rome on Friday, President Trump recently expressed optimism about progress in talks between Russia and Ukraine.
“They are very close to the deal and both sides should meet to “finish it” at a very high level. Most of the main points agree. he I wrote it A true society.
