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'He's being asked to give up everything': Trump and Zelenskyy meet in the Vatican | LBC
Apr 27, 2025
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy have been pictured meeting in St Peter's Basilica on the sidelines of Pope Francis' funeral, after the US president said a Ukraine peace deal was "very close".
The picture, released by Ukrainian officials, showed an ad hoc meeting with the two sitting on plain chairs in the Vatican.
Mr Zelenskyy said the meeting was "very symbolic".
The Ukrainian president said after the meeting, which took the place: "Good meeting. We discussed a lot one on one. Hoping for results on everything we covered.
"Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out. Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results."
LBC's Washington Correspondent Simon Marks joins Matt Frei to interpret the meeting between the two Presidents.
Listen to the full show on Global Player: https://app.af.globalplayer.com/Br0x/LBCYouTubeListenLive
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0:00
Now, one of the extraordinary things about this papal funeral that's finished in St. Peter's
0:04
Square, but the Pope's coffin is now being taken in, I guess, a kind of hearse version of the Pope
0:10
mobile, slowly through the streets of Rome towards the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in the centre
0:15
of the Italian capital, where he will be laid to rest. That was his favourite church. He used to go
0:20
there to pray before and after every foreign trip that he made. And he actually prayed there just a
0:25
few days before he died. And the last Pope to be buried outside the walls of the Vatican City
0:29
was over a century ago. Anyway, one of the other things about the funeral
0:34
is that, of course, Donald Trump, who has been at the funeral with his wife, Melania, has not been able to send any text messages
0:40
or any, we think, he's not been fiddling with his phone, he's not been posting on social media
0:45
and therefore the world has gone relatively quiet for a bit. But there was this very poignant photograph
0:50
which has just been released, of Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, meeting Donald Trump
0:55
the president of the United States, and the last time they met, It didn't go so well in the Oval Office, meeting by themselves around a small coffee table, a round table, sitting on two sort of conference room chairs in a very grand marble hall somewhere in the Vatican
1:12
So they did have their brush by diplomacy. We don't know what was said
1:16
I'm sure we'll find out a little bit later on. Simon Marks is up for us in Washington, D.C
1:21
Good morning, Simon. Morning, Matt. There's a lot of stuff going on, isn't there, with Ukraine and Russia and Trump
1:27
And I find it quite difficult to decipher where exactly we are, because every time Trump says a deal is in the offing, you know, we're almost there
1:34
You know, I'm going to save all these lives, 5000 lives a week. I'm going to save them all. Slightly exaggerating the numbers as usual
1:41
But where exactly are we when it comes to Ukraine and the US and Russia
1:45
Yeah, I think it's a good question. I mean, he talked it up yesterday as he was leaving the White House, Donald Trump, with the First Lady and boarding the chopper that would take him to Air Force One that would then convey him to Rome
1:55
He said that he thought that they were pretty close to a deal. I mean, I think that the overarching situation is that it's absolutely apparent that the United States is trying to strong arm Volodymyr Zelensky into accepting a deal that very, very heavily favors Russia
2:12
I mean, the United States would give up on Ukraine's behalf claims to Crimea, Luhansk, the other parts of eastern Ukraine that the Russians have occupied
2:24
I mean, this is the dismemberment of Ukraine that I think we all anticipated that Donald Trump was going to pursue
2:31
They would also absolutely give up American sanctions on Russia. Sanctions on Russia resulting from this conflict since 2014 will be removed, says the text of the full U.S. proposal as Reuters, the news agency, released it yesterday
2:49
A huge win there for Donald Trump for Vladimir Putin But for Donald Trump clearly there is a need to persuade Volodymyr Zelensky in person to accept the terms of an agreement that he absolutely doesn want to accept
3:06
And if you look at that picture that you referred to there, that the Vatican has put out of the two men locked in conversation, there's a couple of different angles on that picture
3:16
and in one you can see in the background a car there's just the two of them in this marbled
3:21
hallway uh with a cardinal in the background who appears to be uh rearranging a chair and it looks
3:27
like that cardinal may well have brought their two chairs together so they had a place to sit
3:32
there's nothing else just the two men two chairs and this marbled hallway and they are absolutely
3:38
locked in what uh looks like an intense conversation the white house says it lasted 15
3:44
minutes and was very productive. This is the first encounter since Volodymyr Zelensky was on the
3:50
receiving end of that very public drubbing in the White House, I think a mugging orchestrated by
3:56
Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. He's being asked to give up basically everything
4:03
And it's not clear in the text of this proposal that the United States has put forward
4:08
what sort of security guarantees, still not clear what security guarantees the United States
4:13
is going to offer. It says Ukraine will receive robust security guarantees. But what does that
4:20
mean in practical terms? And what does it mean for for Sikhiya Starmer and any plans to deploy
4:26
British forces, whether in the air, in the skies, in the ocean, or potentially even on the ground
4:34
to try and enforce the peace? But there's been very little talk of those troops, partly because
4:38
the Russians have said absolutely no way they will be seen as NATO forces and they will be
4:43
fair game for our artillery and also because Donald Trump thinks it's a bad idea. But the
4:49
thing that keeps haunting me, and we're all rummaging around the kind of treasury chest
4:55
of history to come up with any examples in the 1930s, I mentioned a lot when it comes to the
5:00
authoritarian bent of Donald Trump and so on. But the other day that I think haunts me is 1919
5:06
the year of the Versailles Treaty, because if you impose on the Ukrainians who haven't lost this
5:11
war. They've not won it, but they've not lost it. An unjust peace of which results a truncated
5:19
carved up Ukraine with no real viable sovereignty and all their mineral rights have been extorted by
5:26
the Americans. That is really bad news for future Ukrainian generations and also in terms of binding
5:33
Ukraine into a democratic Europe. Totally, not even just the mineral rights. I mean, this text
5:40
also foresees the United States overseeing, controlling and administering the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, because this is part of Donald Trump's very transactional goal here
5:52
He wants the U energy sector to be involved in Ukraine future alongside those efforts to exploit some would say expropriate the country rare earth minerals
6:04
And so for European leaders, including our own prime minister, this is going now to be
6:09
an absolutely massive challenge because no one looking at this document dispassionately is going
6:15
to see this as anything other than a massive gift for Vladimir Putin. The alternative to this
6:21
document, according to Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, is that the United States simply walks away
6:26
from the peace process. Well, that's a massive gift for Vladimir Putin, because no one imagines
6:32
that Donald Trump will continue offering Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainians any
6:36
continuing military assistance. I mean, they would basically be leaving Ukraine to Russia's
6:43
territorial ambitions without continuing support. So totally selling the country down the river. So
6:49
they think they've got Ukraine over a barrel. But the real question is, how is Europe going to
6:56
respond to all of this? Because it is in Europe, where we will next see the following chapter
7:03
in Vladimir Putin's territorial aspirations. And there's nothing in this text that is going to
7:10
lead Putin to conclude anything other than that he's won in Ukraine, and that he can continue
7:17
threatening Ukraine and that he can start thinking about threatening other parts of the continent
7:22
There's a broader discussion to be had, isn't there, also about Donald Trump retreating to some extent on a whole number of fronts
7:30
Let's talk about tariffs. So, again, the picture is very confusing. The markets are still spooked, although they've caught their breath a little bit
7:38
Where are we on tariffs? Where are we on Liberation Day and its aftermath
7:42
Well, Donald Trump this week has moved away completely from any suggestion that these tariffs are here to stay permanently, although he was once again at the beginning of the week waxing lyrical about the idea of taking all these tariff revenues and one day maybe using them entirely to fund the government so that you could scrap federal income tax
8:04
He claimed that there are 200 separate conversations underway with countries all over the world, more conversations than in fact there are countries, to try and negotiate away the worst impacts of these tariffs
8:17
We know, of course, that Rachel Reeves met Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent yesterday
8:22
A pretty opaque readout of that meeting came from the Treasury Department, didn't suggest an enormous amount of progress had been made
8:30
And Trump claims constantly that there are talks underway, direct talks about tariffs between the United States and China
8:40
China says that is a lie, that they are not going to engage in any negotiations with the United States until all of Trump's unilateral tariffs on Chinese exports are dropped
8:52
But it absolutely apparent that the markets are not going to put up with this for very much longer And indeed the Treasury secretary isn because he last week disclosed that he didn view this trade war as being sustainable
9:05
And the longer this goes on, the more delays are going to be created in the supply chain that will inevitably see prices very, very quickly rising very substantially for American consumers
9:18
And that's a huge risk for Donald Trump because we're already seeing his numbers in the opinion polls as he hurt as he hurtles towards his 100th day in office, cratering down 8 percent over the course of the last month in some polls
9:31
And so it's all about at the moment who is the last person to have the presidency or if it's Scott percent, he's in the mood for negotiations
9:41
If it's his trade advisor, Peter Navarro, he's waxing lyrical about the idea of tariffs replacing income tax
9:47
It's very, very hard to divine what his actual economic strategy is
9:53
Before we get on to the next question, I just want to say that the papal hearse is just passing the Colosseum in Rome
9:59
It's just driven past the Roman Forum on the Fori Imperiali, the access road built by Mussolini between the Colosseum and the Piazza Venezia
10:10
Thousands of people are greeting the cavalcade. Interestingly enough, they were driving at a feral clip
10:17
I was told that he was going to drive at walking pace. This is running, sprinting pace
10:22
I wonder why they're taking, you know, so little time and why they're in such a hurry
10:26
Interesting. Anyway, there we go. A little bit of a picture. So my question, final one to you, Simon, and briefly, if you don't mind
10:34
On one level, he seems to be retreating. On another level, he's defied the Supreme Court on deportations
10:39
He's picking fights with the universities. Where is war Trump with his own country
10:43
Well, we saw a massive move yesterday, a judge being arrested in Milwaukee. Two judges have now been taken into custody by the FBI, accused of harboring immigrants, which is far from clear that they were engaged in doing
11:00
Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, yesterday promulgated new advice to the Department of Justice, making it absolutely clear that the next fight is going to be against journalists here, particularly those engaged in investigative journalistic activities
11:15
And yet, simultaneously, they've backed down on their threat to deport over 1,500 students who have been studying here in the face of a series of courtroom losses
11:26
So they're ignoring some court orders. They're very, very hard line on other issues, continuing to take the country down an authoritarian path where that balance ends up getting struck is really going to be the future story of the Trump administration past the 100 day mark
11:42
You bet. And I'll be there next week to celebrate or commiserate the 100 days of Donald Trump as the economist put it on its front cover
11:50
Not 100 days since he took office, but another 1247 days until he leaves office
11:54
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