Donald Trump has questioned Vladimir Putin’s willingness to end the war in Ukraine following his meeting with the country’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral.
Posting on social media after leaving Rome, Trump said he feared Putin was “tapping me along” after Moscow’s strikes on Kyiv earlier this week, adding there was “no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas”.
Earlier in the day Trump and Zelensky were seen in deep discussion in St Peter’s Basilica shortly before the funeral began.
The White House described the 15-minute meeting with Zelensky as “very productive”. The Ukrainian president said it had the “potential to become historic”.
It was Trump’s first face-to-face encounter with the Ukrainian president since February’s acrimonious Oval Office showdown.
Writing on his Truth Social account, Trump said the Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities “makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?'”.
Trump had previously said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” following Friday’s three-hour talks between his envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president.
The Kremlin meanwhile said on Saturday that Putin had confirmed to Witkoff Russia’s readiness to enter into direct talks with Ukraine “without preconditions”.
Trump and Zelensky’s sit down in Rome was the first time the leaders had come face-to-face since their White House meeting, when Trump told Zelensky “you don’t have the cards” and he was not winning against Russia.
He repeated that message this week, saying the Ukrainian leader had “no cards to play”. Trump has previously blamed Ukraine for starting the war and has accused Zelensky multiple times of being an obstacle to peace negotiations.
But the White House struck a more positive tone about Saturday’s meeting, while Zelensky described the sit down as a “very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results”.
Two images were released of the meeting, showing the US leader in a blue suit and Ukrainian president in a black top and trousers, sitting opposite each other in intense conversation.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also posted an image of the meeting 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 British Prime Minister 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 funeral.
After the meeting, Trump and Zelensky 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, the pair 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, however, later met Macron in the garden of Villa Bonaparte, home to the French embassy to the Holy See.
He also met Sir Keir at Villa Wolkonsky, the British ambassador’s residence, as well as holding separate talks with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
In a post on X, Macron said ending the war in Ukraine was an objective that “we share in common with President Trump”, adding that Ukraine was ready for “an unconditional ceasefire”.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Starmer and Zelensky discussed the positive progress that had been made recently to “secure a just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” adding that the pair had agreed to “maintain momentum” and “speak again at the earliest opportunity”.
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”.
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