Melania Trump to meet Zelenska on sidelines of UN General Assembly
Not a formal bilateral, the encounter signals ongoing private diplomacy as Ukraine seeks broader Western backing.
First Lady Melania Trump will briefly greet Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, with their husbands scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting later that day at the U.N. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are set to meet for a broader discussion around 1 p.m. local time, according to White House aides. The White House described the encounter as not a formal bilateral, but it underscores a pattern of private diplomacy surrounding Ukraine as Washington weighs its next steps in the war.
Zelenska had invited Melania to attend the fifth Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen in Kyiv on Sept. 10-11, but Melania Trump appeared at the September 11 commemorations in New York instead, according to multiple outlets. Ukrinform had reported that Melania would not be present in Kyiv, while the state-run Ukrainian news agency later said the two first ladies would meet later in September in New York alongside the U.N. General Assembly.
Marc Beckman, a senior adviser to Melania Trump, confirmed the coming meeting with Zelenska during appearances on Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning. The arrangement comes as the Trump administration — and Melania by extension — has been cited by allies as having moderated President Donald Trump’s public stance on Ukraine, even as he has clashed publicly with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war.
Trump has grown publicly frustrated with Putin but has resisted taking further steps to sanction Russia, telling reporters at a recent gathering that European nations should first reduce their purchases of Russian oil. He also described private conversations with Putin as part of ongoing dialogue, a dynamic that has drawn scrutiny amid the broader U.S. friction over the war in Ukraine.
The Ukraine issue has repeatedly intruded into Trump’s diplomacy with Zelensky. Zelensky himself has thanked Melania Trump for drawing attention to the war’s humanitarian toll, including the abduction of Ukrainian children; Zelensky has said tens of thousands of children have been taken from Ukraine and has said he delivered a letter to Melania to pass to Putin. The longtime Ukrainian leader has stressed that Melania’s voice matters in the humanitarian effort and in rallying international attention to the issue.
In contrast to the event with Zelenska, Trump’s public focus at the UN has included critiquing what he calls a “globalist” approach and arguing for a different energy strategy, including calls for European nations to reassess their energy dependencies. The White House has emphasized that the UNGA schedule includes the bilateral meeting between Trump and Zelensky, along with other all-day sessions in New York.
As a matter of precedent, Melania Trump’s predecessor, Dr. Jill Biden, made a secret trip to Ukraine on Mother’s Day in 2022, meeting Zelenska in Uzhhorod and signaling high-level, though discreet, U.S. support early in the war. Zelensky later credited Melania with drawing attention to the humanitarian crisis, and urged continued private diplomacy in a conflict that has drawn broad international concern. The UN gathering Tuesday therefore marks another milestone in the overlapping channels of diplomacy and public messaging shaping Western responses to the war.
The White House has not characterized the Tuesday meeting as a formal diplomatic encounter, but it is being treated as a public signal that private conversations and personal diplomacy remain part of the Biden administration’s broader Ukraine approach as the General Assembly convenes.