Trump’s meeting with Putin in Hungary is called off ‘after bad phone call between US and Russian negotiators’
Donald Trump will no longer meet with Vladimir Putin in Hungary after the phone call between US and Russian negotiators ended negatively.
The meeting was announced last week and was planned to be held in Budapest, although a date has not been set.
The decision to cancel the agreement was taken after meetings between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
It appears that the meeting did not go well; Lavrov told Rubio that Russia would not accept a freezing of the current front line in Ukraine.
“An additional face-to-face meeting between the secretary and the secretary of state is not necessary, and President Trump has no plans to meet with President Putin in the near future,” a Trump administration official said.
The official, who wished to remain anonymous, nevertheless described the meeting between Rubio and Lavrov as “productive.”
The Kremlin also said on Tuesday that there was “no definitive time frame” for the summit between Trump and Putin.
The back-and-forth over Trump’s plans is the latest whiplash over efforts to resolve a nearly four-year-old dispute.
Donald Trump will no longer meet Vladimir Putin in Hungary after the phone call between US and Russian negotiators ended negatively
Ukrainian soldiers inspect the vehicle hit by a Russian FPV kamikaze drone on October 16
The decision to cancel the agreement was taken after meetings between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders accused Putin of stalling for time to continue his invasion while diplomatic efforts were ongoing.
They also said they opposed any pressure for Kiev to surrender territory seized by Russian forces in exchange for peace, as Mr. Trump has occasionally suggested.
Eight European leaders and senior European Union officials, including Sir Keir Starmer, said in a joint statement that they planned to press ahead with plans to use Moscow’s frozen assets abroad to help Kiev win the war, despite some doubts about the legality and consequences of such a step.
Zelensky noted that Putin had returned to diplomacy and called Trump last week when faced with the possibility of the United States supplying long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
But in a post on Telegram on Tuesday, Zelensky said: “As soon as the pressure eased a little, the Russians began to abandon diplomacy, postpone the dialogue.”
‘We must end this war, and only pressure will lead to peace,’ he said.
The leaders’ statement ticked off the mark by saying they ‘adhere to the principle that international borders should not be altered by force’.
Mr. Trump last month reversed his long-held position that Ukraine would have to cede territory and suggested it could regain all the territory it lost to Russia.
But after a phone call with Mr Putin last week and a subsequent meeting with Mr Zelensky on Friday, Trump shifted his position again and called on Kiev and Moscow to ‘stand where they are’ in the war.
Trump and Zelensky are seen meeting at the White House earlier this month
On Sunday, Trump said Ukraine should be ‘dismantled’, leaving most of the industrial Donbas region in eastern Ukraine in Russian hands.
Trump said Monday that he thought it was possible for Ukraine to ultimately defeat Russia, but he now doubts that will happen.
Ukrainian and European leaders are working hard to keep Trump on their side.
“We strongly support President Trump’s position that hostilities cease immediately and the current line of contact be the starting point for negotiations,” the statement said.
‘We can all see that Putin continues to choose violence and destruction.’
The dynamics of Mr. Trump’s handling of Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II have zigzagged as he seeks a peace deal.
Russia occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine, but dividing their country in exchange for peace is unacceptable to Kiev officials.
Additionally, Ukrainian and European officials fear that a frozen conflict on the current frontline could worsen as Ukraine’s occupied regions offer Moscow a springboard for new future attacks.
The statement by the leaders of Ukraine, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Denmark and EU officials came earlier in the week when Mr Zelensky said he would be “very active in diplomacy”.
More international economic sanctions against Russia are expected to be discussed at the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday.
Tuesday’s statement said, “We must increase the pressure on the Russian economy and defense industry until Putin is ready to make peace.”
On Friday, a meeting of the Coalition of Volunteers, consisting of 35 countries supporting Ukraine, will be held in London.
