White House talks on Thursday brought together Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, Russian ombudsman Yana Lantratova, Ukrainian lawmaker Davyd Arakhamia and Russian official Kirill Dmitriev after the Oleshky truce expired.
The ceasefire in occupied Oleshky, in Ukraine's Kherson region, enabled the evacuation of several hundred civilians, with the White House saying Melania Trump independently initiated the contacts and secured the pause in fighting.
Zelensky a day earlier awarded Melania Trump the Order of Princess Olha, 1st Class, citing humanitarian support for Ukraine and work on children displaced by the war.
The meeting is unusual because senior Russian and Ukrainian negotiators rarely convene through a US first lady, and no details were released on the White House agenda beyond Melania Trump's planned remarks.
The talks also feed into a wider diplomatic track: US, Russian and Ukrainian representatives are due in Abu Dhabi next week for their first trilateral meeting since February on postwar security and de-escalation.