U.S President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky met for at the Vatican and agreed to meet again later on Saturday for further talks, a spokesman for Zelensky said.
The 15-minute meeting took place at St. Peter’s Basilica, the spokesman said.
Photos released by Zelensky’s office showed the two men sitting opposite each other in the middle of a marbled hall, with none of their aides in the vicinity.
White House communications director Steven Cheung also confirmed the meeting occurred, calling it “a very productive discussion”.
Trump and Zelensky, both accompanied by their wives, sat in the front row of the funeral in St Peter’s Square.
Both sides had kept the prospects of a meeting vague ahead of the funeral with Trump saying only it was “possible”.
Tensions have been high since Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelensky in the Oval Office on February 28, calling him ungrateful for the billions of dollars of U.S military assistance given since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering a conflict not seen in Europe for decades.
