A White House official told US media outlets on Tuesday that there are now “no plans” for a summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the near future as Russia and Ukraine remain very far apart on the terms to end the war.
Trump spoke with Putin last week and said there would be a meeting of their high-level advisors before the two leaders met in Budapest, Hungary, but according to reports in US media, it appears the plans have been called off. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a call on Monday but ended it without an agreement on an in-person meeting.
“Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call. Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary,” a White House official said, according to Axios.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was no date set for another Trump-Putin summit. “No dates have been announced. There is no clarity so far,” he said, according to TASS.
Lavrov told reporters that he was “surprised” by the news. “Today, I read with surprise that according to CNN reports, the meeting between Putin and Trump could be postponed, as after my conversation with Marco Rubio, officials felt … that the Russian position has not evolved enough beyond its maximalist stance,” he said, according to TASS.
Lavrov added that many US news outlets “are generally not prone to serious analytical work; they just use simple slogans that are imposed on consumers.” The Russian diplomat also criticized US calls for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, saying it goes against the understanding Trump and Putin reached at the Alaska summit in August.
“You see, if we just stop, it means forgetting the root causes of this conflict, which the American administration clearly understood,” the Russian diplomat said. “I am referring to ensuring Ukraine’s nonaligned, nonnuclear status, which implies refraining from any attempts to draw it into NATO.”
He added that freezing the lines would “mean only one thing: a large part of Ukraine would remain under Nazi rule.”
Trump spoke with Putin last week before holding a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to media reports, he urged Zelensky to agree to Russia’s terms for a peace deal.
