Before meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House Wednesday, May 10, Russia's top diplomat met with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson the day before.

During his meeting with Tillerson, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was asked if he thought James Comey fresh firing as FBI director would cast a shadow over U.S.-Russia relations.

"Was he fired?" Lavrov said mockingly, the Associated Press reports. "You're kidding. You're kidding." Vladimir Putin's top diplomat is said to have then waved his hand dismissively before leaving the room.

A.P. reports Lavrov and Tillerson met for the chance to continue dialogue from their meeting last month in Moscow. On Wednesday, Trump will meet with the diplomat in his highest level of face-to-face contact with Russia during his administration.

The agenda is expected to focus on the Syrian Civil War and what Russia's plan to stabilize the situation is, but with the meeting coming a day after the firing of the FBI director may make it hard to stay on one topic.

Trump said in a Tuesday statement that "the FBI is one of our nation's most cherished and respected institutions, and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement." The White House will reportedly begin the search for Comey's replacement immediately.

Comey is leading the investigation into whether Trump's campaign and his associates worked with Russia to swing the 2016 election. He has said during hearings that there is no evidence Russian hackers changed any vote tallies in the election, while maintaining they are highly confident the country interfered with the goal of getting Trump elected.

This comes a week removed from Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin's first conversation since the U.S. attacked a Syrian air base. The military action created a divide between the two countries in the past month, with several American officials publicly condemning Russia and Putin's support for Syrian leader Bashar Assad.

The U.S. launched 59 missiles at the Shayrat air base in early April in response to a chemical attack that was blamed on the Syrian government and Assad. It was the first time the U.S. directly targeted the Syrian government since the civil war began in the country. The Kremlin said Putin called the U.S. strike an "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law."

Trump's meeting with Putin's top diplomat, Lavrov, is a result of this phone conversation, A.P. reports via someone with knowledge of the call. The diplomat has not visited Washington D.C. since 2013, which was a year before annexing Crimea and two years before it intervened in support of Bashar Assad in Syria.