Preparations for Putin-Trump Meeting Delayed Days After Hungarian Capital Talks Announced
Currently exist "no arrangements" for American leader President Trump to confer with Russian President Putin "in the immediate future", a White House official has announced.
Recently Trump said he and the Kremlin leader would meet in Budapest within two weeks to address the war in Ukraine.
A preparatory meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov was scheduled to occur this week - but the administration said the two had had a "productive" call and that a meeting was not "necessary".
The administration declined to provide further information on the reason the negotiations had been postponed.
Background Context
The US president had raised the possibility of a Budapest summit during a call with Putin, a just prior to hosting Ukraine's President Zelensky in the White House.
Certain accounts suggested his meeting with the Ukrainian leader had been a "heated exchange", with those familiar claiming the president had pressured him to give up significant territories of Ukraine's east as part of a deal with Russia.
However, on Monday the American president endorsed a ceasefire proposal supported by Ukraine and European leaders to pause the hostilities on the existing battle lines.
"Let it be cut in its current state," he said.
Moscow has consistently objected against pausing the present battle positions.
The Russian government was only interested in "enduring stability", Lavrov stated on this week, suggesting that freezing the front line would simply constitute a brief pause.
Diplomatic Positions
The "root causes" of the hostilities demanded attention, Lavrov stated, using Russian diplomatic language for a range of maximalist demands that involve the acceptance of full Russian sovereignty over the eastern region as well as the demilitarisation of Ukraine – a unacceptable proposition for Kyiv and its European partners.
The Ukrainian president commented conversations concerning the front line were the "commencement of dialogue" but that Moscow was "employing all tactics" to prevent dialogue.
He additionally stated the only topic that could make Moscow "become engaged" was that of the provision of distance-capable munitions to the Ukrainian military.
Weapons Discussions
The Russian president's spontaneous discussion with the US leader recently came ahead of rumors that the United States was planning to provide long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine that could theoretically target Russian territory.
Zelensky asserted it was the Tomahawks issue that had pressured the Kremlin to enter into dialogue. The discussion regarding the weapons systems had turned out to be a "significant input" in diplomacy", he commented.