Moscow: Plans for a proposed meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest have been put on hold, just days after it was floated as a potential step toward ending the war in Ukraine. Trump said he’s put his planned meeting with Putin on hold because he doesn’t want to "waste time".
"I don’t want to have a wasted meeting. I don’t want to have a waste of time, so we’ll see what happens," Trump told reporters at the White House.
The proposed summit, which Trump announced last week, was expected to take place in Budapest in the coming weeks. The plan was paused following a call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who also canceled their own preparatory meeting.
The White House also confirmed there were "no plans" for a Trump-Putin summit in the immediate future, saying recent diplomatic efforts had failed to make a breakthrough toward a ceasefire. While the Kremlin also appeared in no rush to resurrect the meeting, either. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, "Preparation is needed, serious preparation" before any presidential summit can take place.
During a recent phone call between Trump and Putin, Moscow reportedly offered to surrender parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces currently under Russian control in exchange for full control of Donetsk, which is an industrial area and military stronghold long coveted by the Kremlin. However, Kyiv considers Donetsk the gateway to central Ukraine and has resisted any territorial concessions.
