It was a fitting moment for an epiphany, if that’s what this was. Donald Trump sat in the morning light in St Peter’s Basilica hunched over in conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as the assembled royalty and foreign leaders, the cardinals and bishops, and thousands of faithful gathered outside to prepare for the papal funeral.
His revelation soon came in the guise of a Truth Social post. “There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump mused. “It makes me think that maybe [Putin] doesn’t want to stop the war.”
For months, Zelenskyy and European leaders have struggled to deliver that message to Trump. Now, in part thanks to Trump’s unlikely pilgrimage to the Vatican for Pope Francis’s funeral, they may see new hope for their intervention before the Ukraine war is lost for good.
This could, of course, all come to naught. The US president is notoriously mercurial. His thinking may change the next time he speaks with Putin, or with one of his own advisers deeply sceptical of Ukraine. Trump’s post mentioning Putin was mainly dedicated to attacking the New York Times’ White House correspondent, whom he derided as “liddle” and a “very biased and untalented writer”. And Trump left the Vatican before a second meeting with Zelenskyy was supposed to take place.
And yet that one face-to-face with Zelenskyy may leave its mark. The photographs released from the summit were dramatic: the two men sat alone in simple chairs in front of a mosaic of Jesus being baptised in the river Jordan. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, felt compelled to quote the book of Matthew. “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God,” he wrote.
It was a “very symbolic meeting”, Zelenskyy said later, and it had the “potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results”. Zelenskyy, dressed in an all-black outfit that could be termed funereal military chic, was applauded by the crowd as he walked out on to St Peter’s Square.
It was something of a miracle that the summit happened at all. Trump and Zelenskyy hadn’t been in the same room since the Oval Office meltdown when Trump said that Zelenskyy was “disrespectful” and “gambling with world war three”. Trump’s first trip abroad was meant to be a visit to Saudi Arabia in May. And it wasn’t clear that a meeting would act in Zelenskyy’s favour – advisers suggested he should use European leaders as mediators because his and Trump’s relationship was too volatile.
And it could have gone far worse. As Trump arrived at St Peter’s Square on Saturday morning, there were numerous reminders of the great rift that has opened between the US and its friends in Europe, largely prompted by an America First platform that has tested the transatlantic alliance.
Trump and his wife, Melania, stood among other leaders behind the world royalty as Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re read a homily that seemed to nod at the tensions between Trump and the late pontiff, particularly over the White House policies on migration and the recent executive order on deportations.
“‘Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” Re said during his homily. “His gestures and exhortations in favour of refugees and displaced persons are countless. His insistence on working on behalf of the poor was constant.”
At moments, the funeral seemed almost tailored to trigger the Maga faithful. The final group of mourners to pay their respects to the late pope were the “poor and marginalised people”, including homeless, prisoners, migrants and transgender people, the Vatican said.
And yet, in a rare moment of western cohesion, cooler heads prevailed and Ukraine’s leader was able to sit down with the president of the country’s most important ally. Whether the symbolism of Trump and Zelenskyy’s Vatican summit will translate into policy remains to be seen.
