Washington, D.C.: A planned high-stakes peace summit in Budapest, Hungary, between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been placed on hold without warning. On Tuesday, President Trump acknowledged the delay, saying he didn’t want to have a “wasted meeting” because Russia was being so strict about the war in Ukraine.
The decision was made just days after the White House hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and in the middle of a lot of diplomatic back-and-forth that was started by a surprise phone chat between Trump and Putin. White House officials said that the main issue is that Moscow wants full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region as a condition for any peace deal. This goes against Trump’s most recent call for a ceasefire at the current front lines.
From a lot of diplomatic activity to a standstill
The idea of a second Trump-Putin meeting, which may happen in the next two weeks, came up after the two presidents had a “very productive” phone chat last week. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a key supporter of Putin in the EU, was happy to propose Budapest as the host. He promised to work with everyone and called the news “great news for the peace-loving people of the world.”
But this diplomatic progress quickly ran into an impediment that couldn’t be overcome. Trump is said to have pushed President Zelenskyy to accept Russia’s proposals, which included giving up all of the industrial Donbas region, in order to reach a rapid peace accord during their next meeting in Washington. A person who knows about the meeting said it was “tense” and that Trump, who apparently didn’t want to look at maps of the battle lines, told Zelenskyy that Putin would “destroy you if you don’t agree now.”
Later, Trump changed his mind about Ukraine giving up land. Instead, he said that fighting should “stop where they are” and that the Donbas should be “cut the way it is” along the current battle line, leaving the difficult talks for another time.
Russia Says No to Ceasefire Along Current Lines