\u201cI want him to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal,\u201d Trump said of Putin on Sunday as he returned to Washington to begin what aides say will be a critical week in determining the future of US-led efforts to broker an end to the war. \u201cWe have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it and be done with it and just go back to life.\u201d
Whether Trump maintains the critical approach to Putin is anyone\u2019s guess. History has shown Trump far more conciliatory toward the Kremlin leader, sometimes echoing his talking points.
And for all of the Vatican meeting\u2019s symbolism \u2014 peace talks inside the marble walls where Pope Francis had once called for peace \u2014 it was far from clear afterward what if anything had actually changed in the efforts to end the war.
Still, for a president who said this month he was \u201cnot a fan\u201d of Zelensky and accused him of prolonging the invasion of his own country, it was a remarkable shift in blame after the encounter inside St. Peter\u2019s.
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It was a meeting neither side seemed certain would come to pass, and both US and Ukrainian officials were careful not to telegraph any expectations ahead of time. Heading into Rome on Friday, Trump suggested he wouldn\u2019t have time for extensive meetings, and questioned whether it would be quite suitable to engage in foreign policy while honoring the late Pope Francis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inside the Vatican the next day, as Trump and Zelensky found themselves walking through the building at the same time, it still wasn\u2019t clear to people watching the encounter unfold whether they would in fact sit down for talks.
But Vatican officials were quick to mobilize, bringing three chairs to a corner of St. Peter\u2019s Basilica where Trump and Zelensky could be sequestered from fellow world leaders and speak in private.
The third chair was originally intended for a translator, one person familiar with the matter said, seeking to put to rest speculation it could have been meant for French President Emmanuel Macron, who greeted both Trump and Zelensky in the minutes before the huddle began.
Macron had been among the leaders who was hoping Trump and Zelensky would be able to speak directly in Rome. But when it came time for them to sit down, Macron walked away after exchanging words with Trump, leaving the US and Ukrainian leaders to speak directly.
\u201cThe thing he was determined to do was to talk to Zelensky face-to-face and talk about how we\u2019re going to get the largest land war in Europe to an end,\u201d US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who was in Rome, said on Fox News. \u201cBoth sides have to want that.\u201d
With no aides present, the precise contours of what the two men discussed underneath a massive painting of Jesus\u2019s baptism remain closely held. Only cursory readouts were provided afterward.
But a day later, Trump told reporters Zelensky had asked him for more weapons, which he said was typical, and said they briefly discussed the issue of Crimea \u2014 the peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, which the US would recognize as Russian under an American peace proposal.
If Zelensky had protested that concession, Trump seemed unmoved.
\u201cI don\u2019t know how you can bring up Crimea,\u201d he said Sunday. \u201cThat\u2019s been a long time.\u201d
Trump\u2019s efforts to end the Ukraine war have become a major frustration as he approaches his hundredth day in office. He has told advisers that mediating an end to the conflict is harder than he expected.
Some of Trump\u2019s advisers continue to worry they are wasting their time trying to resolve a conflict that has shown little signs of waning. Trump himself said Sunday he was \u201csurprised and disappointed\u201d that Russia had launched a missile assault on Kyiv as the talks were proceeding, and pondered whether Putin was \u201ctapping\u201d him along.
Perhaps as a way to pressure both sides to reach a deal, Trump\u2019s top diplomat suggested Sunday the end-point in US efforts was approaching.
\u201cThis week is going to be really important week in which we have to make a determination about whether this is an endeavor that we want to continue to be involved in, or if it\u2019s time to sort of focus on some other issues that are equally, if not more, important,\u201d US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday on NBC.
Yet for all of the difficulties in negotiating a settlement, the meeting Saturday provided at least some hope to Trump and his aides that diplomacy was possible, at least with the Ukrainians.
For his part, Trump also appeared taken by the grandeur of the setting.
\u201cIt was a beautiful meeting,\u201d Trump said in New Jersey. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you it was the nicest office I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Inside the soaring nave of St. Peter\u2019s Basilica on Saturday, the quiet hush of world leaders paying respects to the late Pope Francis was briefly interrupted by a flurry of activity in a secluded corner near the entrance doors. Men in black robes rushed over with red-cushioned chairs. A contingent of American Secret Service agents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/27dc-ukraine-trump-vidcover-vjgb-videoSmall.jpg?fit=500%2C281&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13610,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13609\/revisions\/13610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}