WASHINGTON: The White House confirmed there are “no plans” for US President Donald Trump to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin anytime soon, shelving an expected Budapest summit that was meant to address the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Officials said a planned preparatory meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was replaced by a “productive” phone call, but no explanation was offered for cancelling the face-to-face talks.
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The pause follows widening gaps between Washington’s peace proposals and Moscow’s preconditions, reportedly over control of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. Reports suggested Trump’s earlier conversation with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky had turned heated after Trump pushed for territorial concessions to Russia — an idea Kyiv flatly rejected.
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Trump recently backed a ceasefire to freeze the front line, saying, “Let it be cut the way it is. Stop fighting, stop killing.” However, Moscow dismissed the plan as temporary and insisted on Ukrainian troop withdrawal from contested areas.
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European leaders echoed Zelensky’s stance, calling the front-line freeze the “starting point of diplomacy,” while accusing Russia of avoiding genuine peace. The White House’s decision to halt summit plans appears aimed at avoiding another inconclusive encounter like the Trump-Putin Alaska meeting in August.
