US President Donald Trump held a "very good meeting" with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the G7 summit in France, he told journalists on June 16, adding that "Russia should make a deal" while hinting that Europe's largest conflict since World War II might be moving up his priority list.
US efforts to broker peace in the conflict that has raged since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have largely stalled in recent months, particularly since US and Israeli air strikes began the war with Iran on February 28.
But Trump suggested this may change now that a framework agreement with Iran has been announced.
Asked if he would now have "a special focus" on Ukraine, Trump responded: "We were focused on Iran. That's going to be in the back, in the rear-view mirror…. I want to do whatever I can."
Trump also said he would meet with Zelenskyy again later on June 16.
Later, in an English-language interview with Reuters, Zelenskyy said that for the first time there was "unanimity" at the G7 regarding the war.
"A long time, some of our partners -- they've been balancing. But now everyone is recognizing that Russia, that Putin, doesn't want to stop this war," he said.
Zelenskyy did not name the partners in question, but appeared to be referring to positions taken by Trump -- with whom he has at times had a difficult relationship.
"We had real unanimity today in G7 summit. Everybody was on the side of, I think, on the right side. And it's good that we have the same information from our intelligence," Zelenskyy said. "Everybody recognized that Russia wants to attack civilian infrastructure. And this is also a new step of understanding, of unanimity of this understanding."
Hours earlier, as Zelenskyy sat down with G7 leaders, including Trump, he opened a folder with a photograph of what appeared to a nighttime fire -- possibly the results of what Ukraine says was a targeted Russian attack on the iconic UNESCO-protected Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Cathedral, or Monastery of the Caves.
Zelenskyy has often presented photos of Russian attacks and atrocities at diplomatic meetings. The strike on the cathedral, at the heart of the historic monastery complex, has drawn global condemnation and underscored how there is still no end in sight to the conflict -- or to intense Russian air strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has also been hitting back, in particular with a campaign of long-range drone strikes on Russian oil refineries that continued in the hours before the G7 summit with an attack on an oil refinery near Moscow that supplies some 40 percent of the capital region's fuel consumption.
On the battlefield , Russian forces have failed to achieve any breakthrough in what has become a largely static war of attrition.
Prior to the summit, Bloomberg reported that US allies wanted to convince Trump that Ukraine now held the initiative in the conflict.
As Trump was speaking, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were currently no plans for US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to visit Moscow. They have been frequent visitors to the Russian capital but have never visited Kyiv.
Elsewhere on the diplomatic and economic front, Ukraine has also been making advances, notably by finally launching formal accession negotiations with the European Union on June 15.
As talks were ongoing at the G7, a post on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's X account said the Lavra attack was "deplorable."
"Attacks like this are why I have announced sanctions to target the vessels, the money, and the actors propping up Russia's war economy, and in turn, threatening European security," it said, referring to new British measures timed to coincide with the summit.
The move came after British forces seized a Russian shadow fleet tanker for the first time on June 14. The vessel, a Cameroon-flagged oil tanker named Smyrtos, is now being held at anchor in UK waters. Its captain was due to appear in court in Britain on June 16 and could face a 10-year prison sentence for transporting sanctioned Russian oil.
