- Summit preparations appear to be at a standstill after the Rubio-Lavrov meeting is postponed.
- “I think the Russians wanted too much,” says the European diplomat.
- Neither side has publicly abandoned plans for the Budapest meeting.
A planned summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was put on hold on Tuesday as Moscow’s rejection of an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine cast a cloud over attempts at talks.
This was reported by a senior official in the White House Reuters“There are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future,” after Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a “productive call” but opted out of an in-person meeting.
Trump had announced last week that he and Putin would soon meet in Hungary to try to end the war in Ukraine. But Putin has been unwilling to consider concessions. Moscow has long demanded that Ukraine agree to cede more territory before a possible ceasefire.
Trump, asked by reporters about the prospect of a summit, said he did not want to have a “wasted meeting” but suggested there could be more developments and that “we will notify you in the next two days” about them.
Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy, said in a social media post that “preparations continue” for a summit.
Russia reiterated its longstanding terms for a peace deal in a private communiqué known as a “non-paper” that it sent to the United States last weekend, according to two U.S. officials and two people familiar with the situation.
The communication reaffirmed Russia’s claim to full control of the long-disputed eastern Donbas region, according to one official, effectively rejecting Trump’s call for a ceasefire to begin with a freeze on the front lines in their predominant locations.
Russia controls all of Luhansk province and about 75% of neighboring Donetsk, which together make up the Donbas region.
European leaders on Tuesday urged Washington to stick to demanding an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, with the current battle lines to serve as a basis for any future negotiations.
NATO said Secretary General Mark Rutte traveled to Washington on Tuesday for talks with Trump, which two sources familiar with the matter said would take place on Wednesday.
A Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Rutte planned to present to Trump the European views on a ceasefire and any subsequent peace talks.
Trump, who last week spoke by phone with Putin and met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had hoped for another high-profile meeting with the Russian leader after their August summit in Alaska failed to advance talks.
But the two sides postponed a preparatory meeting between Rubio and Lavrov that was expected to take place in Budapest on Thursday.
Lavrov and Rubio spoke by phone on Monday. Lavrov said that the place and time of the next Trump-Putin summit was less important than the content of the implementation of the understandings reached in Alaska.
The Kremlin said there was no clear date and that “serious preparation” for a summit was needed, which could take time.
“Listen, we understand the presidents, but we cannot postpone what has not been completed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “Neither President Trump nor President Putin gave exact dates.”
Asked if Moscow had an understanding of a possible date for the summit, Peskov said: “No, there is no understanding.”
“I think the Russians wanted too much”
Neither side has publicly abandoned plans for Trump to meet Putin. Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, was in Washington on Tuesday, where he wrote on Facebook: “We have some serious days ahead”.
But two senior European diplomats said the postponement of the Rubio-Lavrov meeting was a sign that the Americans would be reluctant to go ahead with a Trump-Putin summit unless Moscow complied with its demands.
“I suspect the Russians wanted too much and it became clear to the Americans that there will be no deal for Trump in Budapest,” said one.
The Russians “have not changed their position at all and are not agreeing to ‘stop where they are,'” the second diplomat said. “And I assume that Lavrov gave the same play and Rubio said, ‘See you later.’
The worried Europeans, Trump will not get any concessions
Ukraine’s European allies have been concerned that Trump could meet Putin for a second time without getting any serious concessions from the Russian leader.
In a statement on Tuesday, the leaders of European powers, including Britain, France, Germany and the European Union, said they “strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately and that the current line of contact should be the starting point for negotiations.”
Trump has often shifted his emphasis publicly when talking about Ukraine. But last Friday, after he met with Zelenskiy at the White House, he explicitly supported the position that a ceasefire should start with forces in their current positions.
Reuters and other news organizations reported that Trump’s closed-door meeting with Zelenskiy was contentious, with the US president repeatedly using profanity and pressuring Zelenskiy to accept some Russian demands.
But Zelenskiy has painted the meeting as a success because it ended with Trump publicly endorsing a ceasefire on current lines, Kyiv’s long-standing position.
European leaders are to meet this week with Zelenskiy as their guest, first at an EU summit and then at a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” countries to discuss a security force to guarantee a post-war settlement in Ukraine. Russia rejects such an international security force.
The choice of Budapest as the venue for a Putin-Trump meeting is contentious within the EU, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban an outlier as one of the few leaders to maintain warm relations with Russia.
Any trip to Budapest would require Putin to fly through the airspace of other EU countries. Poland said on Tuesday it could force Putin’s plane down and arrest him on an international arrest warrant if he flies over its territory, but Bulgaria said Putin could use its airspace to reach the meeting.
