President Volodymyr Zelensky used a brief meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at Pope Francis' funeral to urge a harder line on Russian President Vladimir Putin and a renewed push for a complete ceasefire in Ukraine, Axios reported on April 30 citing undisclosed sources briefed on the exchange.
The 15-minute conversation took place on April 26 inside St. Peter’s Basilica after the two leaders encountered each other at the late pontiff’s funeral. Zelensky reportedly pressed Trump to return to his original proposal of an unconditional ceasefire as the starting point for peace talks, a move Kyiv has supported but Moscow has rejected — demanding complete halt on military aid to Ukraine.
The discussion was the first in-person meeting between the two leaders since their tense February encounter in the Oval Office, during which Trump and Vice President JD Vance sharply criticized Zelensky over what they called “a lack of gratitude for U.S. support.”
Trump has sought to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, a proposal viewed by critics as favoring Moscow while placing added pressure on Kyiv. The Vatican meeting was seen as a possible reset.
After the April 26 exchange, Trump posted a critic of Putin on Truth Social, reacting to a large-scale Russian airstrike on Kyiv.
“It 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?” he wrote en route back to the U.S.
Sources told Axios that Zelensky’s advisers had initially debated whether the meeting was worth the risk, given the fallout from February’s Oval Office confrontation. The conversation in the Basilica was unplanned but ultimately constructive, both sides said after the meeting concluded.
According to one source, Trump told Zelensky he might need to reconsider his approach to Putin and did not press Kyiv to recognize occupied Crimea as Russian territory, clarifying that such recognition would come from the U.S., not Ukraine.
Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 following a widely condemned referendum held under military occupation and without international observers. A reported Trump administration proposal to formally recognize Crimea as Russian territory has drawn sharp warnings from Kyiv and Western officials.
Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko told the Kyiv Independent such a move would be “much worse than Munich in 1938,” referring to the appeasement of Nazi Germany. He said official U.S. recognition would amount to a “serious violation” of international law and undermine global norms on sovereignty and territorial integrity.
According to Axios, during the Vatican meeting, Zelensky reiterated that he is open to compromise but needs firm security guarantees before making concessions.
Chris York
(Updated: )
