Plans for Trump-Putin Summit Shelved Shortly After Budapest Negotiations Announced
Currently exist "no plans" for US President Donald Trump to confer with Russian President Putin "in the immediate future", a White House official has stated.
Recently the US president said he and the Kremlin leader would meet in Hungary's capital soon to discuss the ongoing hostilities.
A planning session between America's top diplomat Secretary Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov was due to be held recently - but the administration stated the two had had a "constructive" conversation and that a face-to-face session was no longer "necessary".
The administration declined to provide additional specifics on why the talks had been postponed.
Previous Developments
Trump had discussed a Hungarian meeting over the phone with Putin, a just prior to meeting Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.
Certain accounts indicated his meeting with the Ukrainian leader had been a "heated exchange", with insiders suggesting Trump had pressured him to cede large areas of Ukraine's east as part of a deal with Russia.
Nevertheless, on Monday Trump endorsed a peace initiative supported by Kyiv and European leaders to freeze the conflict on the present positions.
"Freeze the lines in its current state," he said.
Russia has consistently objected against freezing the present battle positions.
Moscow was exclusively seeking "permanent resolution", Lavrov said on this week, suggesting that freezing the front line would merely represent a short-term truce.
Political Perspectives
The "underlying reasons" of the war demanded attention, Lavrov said, using Moscow's terminology for a set of extensive requirements that involve the acceptance of full Russian sovereignty over the Donbas as well as the military reduction of Ukraine – a impossible condition for Kyiv and its European partners.
The Ukrainian president said talks regarding the battle positions were the "start of negotiations" but that Moscow was "taking all measures" to evade negotiations.
He further commented the only topic that could cause Russia to "become engaged" was that of the delivery of long-range weapons to the Ukrainian military.
Strategic Factors
The Russian president's unscheduled call with Trump last Thursday came ahead of reports that the US was considering delivering extended-range cruise missiles to Ukraine that could possibly hit deep into Russia.
Zelensky stated it was the missile discussion that had compelled Moscow to engage in discussion. The talk about the weapons systems had emerged as a "strong investment" in diplomacy", he added.