Preparations for Trump-Putin Summit Shelved Days Following Budapest Talks Suggested

Trump and Putin
Putin and Trump last met in late summer in the northern US state and the American leader had stated further talks would occur in Budapest

Currently exist "no preparations" for US President President Trump to meet Russian President Putin "in the near term", a administration representative has stated.

This past week Trump stated he and the Kremlin leader would hold talks in Hungary's capital within two weeks to examine the Ukraine conflict.

A initial discussion between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Lavrov was due to be held recently - but the White House said the two had had a "positive" conversation and that a face-to-face session was not "needed".

The administration declined to provide additional specifics on why the talks had been put on hold.

Previous Developments

Trump had discussed a Budapest summit over the phone with the Russian leader, a just prior to hosting Ukraine's President Zelensky in the White House.

Certain accounts claimed his meeting with Zelensky had been a "heated exchange", with insiders claiming Trump had pushed him to cede large areas of eastern Ukraine as part of a deal with Russia.

Nevertheless, on this week Trump supported a peace initiative backed by Kyiv and European leaders to freeze the conflict on the existing battle lines.

"Leave it as is the way it is," he said.

Russia has repeatedly pushed back against freezing the existing front lines.

The Russian government was only interested in "long-term, sustainable peace", Russia's foreign minister said on this week, indicating that halting hostilities would merely represent a brief pause.

Diplomatic Positions

The "root causes" of the conflict needed to be addressed, Lavrov said, using Moscow's terminology for a series of maximalist demands that encompass the acknowledgment of total Russian authority over the eastern region as well as the demilitarisation of Ukraine – a impossible condition for Ukraine and its Western allies.

Zelensky stated talks regarding the front line were the "start of negotiations" but that Moscow was "doing everything" to prevent dialogue.

He further commented the exclusive issue that could make Moscow "become engaged" was that of the provision of long-range weapons to Ukraine.

Military Considerations

The Russian president's unscheduled call with the US leader recently occurred before speculation that the United States was considering delivering distance-capable weapons to Ukrainian forces that could theoretically target inside Russia.

Zelensky asserted it was the Tomahawks issue that had compelled Moscow to participate in talks. The talk about the missiles had emerged as a "valuable contribution" in diplomacy", he commented.

Joel Benson
Joel Benson

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