US President Donald Trump said he did not want a ‘waste of talks’ with Russian President Vladimir Putin after plans to hold face-to-face talks over the war in Ukraine were shelved.
In a speech at the White House on Tuesday, the US president pointed out that Moscow’s refusal to stop fighting on the current front line is a major obstacle.
previously A White House official said there were “no plans” for a Trump-Putin meeting “in the near future,” after Trump said Thursday the two would meet in Budapest within two weeks.
This week, as key differences between the U.S. and Russian peace proposals became more apparent, any chance of a summit appeared to have fallen by the wayside.
Trump and Putin last met in August at a hastily organized summit in Alaska that produced no concrete results.
The White House’s decision to postpone plans for a second Trump-Putin meeting could be seen as an attempt to avoid another similar scenario.
“I think the Russians wanted too much,” a senior European diplomat told Reuters. “It has become clear to the Americans that there will be no negotiations with President Trump in Budapest.”
A preliminary meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was due to take place this week, but the White House said the two had a ‘productive’ call and the meeting was ‘no longer necessary’.
On Monday, Trump accepted a ceasefire proposal supported by Kiev and European leaders to freeze the current conflict on the front lines.
“Just cut it like that,” he said. “I said: Cut and stop at the front line. Go home. Stop fighting, stop killing people.”
Russia has repeatedly pushed back against freezing current lines of contact.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such proposals had been repeatedly communicated to Russia, but “the consistency of Russia’s position does not change.” Moscow has called for a complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the embattled eastern region.
Moscow is only interested in “long-term and sustainable peace,” Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. This implied that the frontline freeze would only be a temporary ceasefire.
Lavrov said the “root causes of the conflict” had to be addressed. It is the Kremlin’s shorthand for a set of maximalist demands, including recognition of Russia’s full sovereignty over Donbas and the demilitarization of Ukraine. This is not a priority for Kyiv and its European partners.
European leaders issued a statement Tuesday morning with Zelenskyy saying any talks to end the war in Ukraine must start with freezing the current frontline and accusing Russia of being “not serious” about peace.
Zelensky said discussions on the front lines were “the beginning of diplomacy” and that Russia was making every effort to avoid them.
The only topic that could make Moscow pay attention is the supply of long-range weapons to Ukraine, he added.
A day before meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House, President Trump had a phone call with President Putin to discuss a summit in the Hungarian capital.
Some reports said Trump had pressured Zelensky to give up large swathes of territory in the eastern region known as Donbas as part of a deal with Russia.
But Zelensky has always said Ukraine cannot give up the part of Donbas it still holds on the grounds that Russia could later use the region as a springboard for further attacks.
The unscheduled phone call between Putin and Trump on Thursday followed speculation that the United States was preparing to send long-range Tomahawk missiles to Kiev that could strike deep into Russia.
Zelenskyy said it was the Tomahawks issue that brought Russia into the discussions.
Despite leaving the White House empty-handed, he added that talk about missiles turned out to be a “powerful investment in diplomacy.”
