Zelensky and Trump meet inside St Peter’s Basilica before Pope’s funeral

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump have met inside St Peter’s Basilica ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral.

The White House described the 15-minute meeting as “very productive” and Zelensky later called it “very symbolic” with the “potential to become historic”.

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 an image of Zelensky sitting with Trump, the Ukrainian leader’s head of office Andriy Yermak added a single word, “constructive”.

The two leaders had not met since their tempestuous Oval Office meeting in the White House at the end of February, when Trump told Zelensky he was not winning and “you don’t have the cards”.

He repeated that message this week, saying the Ukrainian leader had “no cards to play”.

Two images of the men showed Trump in a blue suit, Zelensky wearing a black top and trousers – with the two men sitting opposite each other having an intense conversation and holding serious expressions.

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.”

Another image posted by the Ukrainian delegation from inside St Peter’s showed the two men standing alongside Sir Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron, his hand on Zelensky’s shoulder.

The implication was that the prime minister and French president had helped to bring the two together, against the sombre backdrop of the Pope’s funeral.

Steven Cheung, White House communications director, said more details about the Vatican City private meeting between Trump and Zelensky would follow.

After the meeting the two men then walked down the steps of the basilica, where Zelensky’s arrival was met with applause from the crowds, and took their seats in the front row.

During the service Zelensky and Trump sat a short distance from each other, with Macron and other heads of state in between.

In his homily, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re spoke of Pope Francis’s incessant calls for peace. “‘Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” said the cardinal.

Ukrainian officials had talked of a possible second meeting but Trump’s motorcade drove away from St Peter’s immediately afterwards and his plane left Rome a short time later.

Zelensky has however attended a meeting with President Macron and is reportedly set to meet with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Trump’s envoy Witkoff left Moscow on Friday after a fourth visit to Russia since the start of the year, after three-hour talks later described as “very useful” by Putin aide Yuri Ushakov.

Ushakov also added that it had brought the “Russian and US positions closer together, not just on Ukraine but also on a range of other international issues” of which the “possibility of resuming direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives was in particular discussed”.

During February’s heated White House exchange Trump accused the Ukrainian president of “gambling with World War Three” by not going along with ceasefire plans led by Washington.

Kyiv has been on the receiving end of growing pressure from Trump to accept territorial concessions as part of an agreement with Moscow to end the war.

These concessions would reportedly include giving up large portions of land, including the Crimean peninsula which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea in the past. He suggested to the BBC on Friday that “a full and unconditional ceasefire opens up the possibility to discuss everything”.