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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the real turning point in his relationship with US President Donald Trump came during a brief personal meeting at the Vatican, held at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome in April 2025 during the funeral of Pope Francis.
He discussed this in an excerpt from an interview with Laura Loomer, a blogger close to Trump, shared on X, according to UATV English.
“The tone has changed absolutely. We had our first changing moment in Rome, in the Vatican. Yes, it was not a long meeting, but I always said it was, I think, a historic moment. We changed our relations during 15-20 minutes. So nobody was around us. There were only two of us, and I was very happy to hear the president,” Zelenskyy said, describing it as a good bilateral conversation.
“And I’m so happy because a lot in life depends on such relations,” he added.
President Trump reposted this portion of the interview on his Truth Social page. Loomer has said she plans to publish the full interview with the Ukrainian president shortly.
As previously reported, the February 28, 2025 meeting between the two presidents at the White House was cut short following disputes over the facts of the war in Ukraine and questions of trust in Putin’s word and past agreements. In April 2025, Zelenskyy, First Lady Olena Zelenska, and the Ukrainian delegation traveled to Rome to attend Pope Francis’s funeral, where Zelenskyy subsequently met with Trump.
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