President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine met with President Donald Trump’s special envoy in Kyiv on Thursday — a day after a public feud between the Ukrainian and American leaders threatened to derail diplomatic efforts toward peace talks.

The meeting with Keith Kellogg, the special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, was meant to discuss paths to ending the war that would safeguard Ukraine’s interests. There was also hope that it might help defuse tensions between Washington and Ukraine after Trump labeled Zelenskyy a “dictator” and the Ukrainian president accused him of echoing Russian propaganda.

Whether any progress was made remains unclear: A news conference scheduled for after the meeting was canceled at the request of the United States, according to Zelenskyy’s office, although Kellogg and the Ukrainian leader appeared together for photos.

Reporters who had gathered for the news conference were told to go home. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv did not immediately comment.

“It is a bad signal,” Solomiia Bobrovska, a member of the defense and intelligence committee of parliament, said in a phone interview, referring to the canceled news conference.

Zelenskyy later wrote on social media that he had a “productive meeting” with Kellogg, in which they discussed the situation on the battlefield, the return of prisoners of war and security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace deal. “Strong Ukraine-U.S. relations benefit the entire world,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine, wary of straining ties with Washington, its biggest ally, had suggested that the meeting would aim to stop the feud from escalating into an out-of-control dispute. “It is crucial for us that the meeting and our overall cooperation with America be constructive,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Wednesday.

But there have been concerns in Ukraine that Kellogg, a retired U.S. general and longtime adviser to Trump on security matters, has been sidelined from the administration’s negotiating team, since he was not part of the U.S. delegation that met with Russian officials this week to initiate what the White House said were peace talks.

Kellogg has said that the United States is conducting separate discussions on a potential peace deal with Russia and with Ukraine and that he is leading the U.S.-Ukraine track while Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, is in charge of the U.S.-Russia track. The two envoys will then return to Washington to compare notes and determine the next steps, according to Kellogg.

He arrived in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on Wednesday morning for a three-day visit. Speaking from the city’s railway station upon arrival, Kellogg said his mission would be to “sit and listen” to Ukraine’s concerns. He also said that he understood Ukraine’s “need for security guarantees” in any postwar settlement.

Later that day, he met with a series of top Ukrainian officials, including Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of the Ukrainian army; Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency; and Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskyy’s office.

Beyond discussing a possible path to a peace deal with Zelenskyy, Kellogg had been expected to address a potential agreement that would grant the United States access to Ukrainian natural resources as compensation for past aid and, possibly, as a guarantee for future assistance. Trump has insisted that he wants payback for the money Washington has invested in Ukraine’s defense.

Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, presented Zelenskyy with a draft of the agreement last week. But Zelenskyy rejected the proposal — an extraordinary demand to grant the United States a 50% interest in Ukraine’s natural resources like minerals, oil and gas — because it did not tie resource access to security guarantees for Ukraine.

Trump has demanded $500 billion of Ukrainian critical minerals, a request that Zelenskyy dismissed as “not serious” during a news conference Wednesday.

Mike Waltz, the U.S. national security adviser, on Thursday told reporters that Trump’s frustration with Zelenskyy was “multifold,” and that it included a perceived lack of appreciation by the Ukrainian president for the United States.

A Ukrainian official with knowledge of the talks Thursday said Zelenskyy told Kellogg he wanted to speed up work on a potential deal and suggested creating a bilateral working group to address the security, economic and legal aspects of an agreement. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.