When asked about the decision to postpone plans for a summit with the Kremlin leader in Budapest, U.S. President Donald Trump replied that he does not want a "useless meeting." He added that the situation will become clearer within the next two days, DW reports.
U.S. President Donald Trump explained the reason why his scheduled summit in Hungary with Russian President Vladimir Putin was postponed. "I don’t want a useless meeting," Trump replied to a journalist's question during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on the night of Wednesday, October 22, European time. "I don’t want to waste time, so we’ll see what happens," he added.
According to the American president, a decision regarding the meeting with the Kremlin leader will be made within the next two days.
On October 16, after a phone conversation with Putin, Trump stated that negotiations between the delegations of Russia and the United States would take place the following week (October 20–26), with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio leading the latter. The U.S. president announced that after this, he would personally meet with the Russian president in the capital of Hungary.
Media: Preparation for Trump-Putin Meeting Suspended
Several hours earlier, a number of journalists and media outlets reported, citing an anonymous White House official, that the meeting between the U.S. and Russian presidents in Budapest would not take place in the near future, as U.S. authorities had canceled preparations for it.
In particular, NBC correspondent Garrett Haake wrote on social media platform X that "preparations for the Trump-Putin summit in Budapest are currently suspended." His anonymous senior White House official stated that Trump considers the readiness of the parties for negotiations to be insufficient.
Later, Reuters and AFP also reported, citing an anonymous senior White House official, that there are currently no plans for a Trump-Putin meeting "in the near future." Their source added that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also do not plan a personal meeting.
Demands for the Surrender of Donbas
On October 17, a meeting took place at the White House between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. Later, Trump stated that he insists on freezing the conflict along the current front line.
On October 21, AFP reported, citing a senior Ukrainian official, that Trump was indeed pressuring Zelensky to abandon all of Donbas. The agency's source characterized the recent negotiations between the heads of state at the White House as "tense."
In turn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov informed Russian journalists on the same day that Russia's position on Ukraine had not changed after the negotiations between Putin and Trump in Alaska. Earlier, the Financial Times, citing eight Western and Ukrainian sources, reported that Putin rejected the U.S. proposal to ease sanctions against Moscow in exchange for a ceasefire in the war he initiated, demanding the transfer of eastern territories of Ukraine that had not yet been captured by Russia.
