🔗 Share this article

There are "no plans" for American leader Donald Trump to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin "in the immediate future", a White House official has announced.

This past week Trump said he and the Russian president would conduct negotiations in Budapest within two weeks to address the ongoing hostilities.

A planning session between US Secretary of State Secretary Rubio and his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Lavrov was scheduled to occur recently - but the White House clarified the two had had a "productive" conversation and that a face-to-face session was no longer "necessary".

The White House did not share further information on why the talks had been delayed.

Previous Developments

The US president had raised the possibility of a Hungarian meeting during a call with the Russian leader, a day before meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.

Some reports indicated his meeting with the Ukrainian leader had been a "heated exchange", with insiders claiming Trump had pressured him to relinquish significant territories of Ukraine's east as part of a deal with Moscow.

Nevertheless, on this week Trump embraced a truce plan supported by Kyiv and EU officials to pause the conflict on the present positions.

"Leave it as is where it stands," he said.

Russia has consistently objected against pausing the present battle positions.

Moscow was only interested in "long-term, sustainable peace", Russia's foreign minister commented on this week, implying that pausing conflict would merely represent a short-term truce.

Political Perspectives

The "fundamental issues" of the hostilities required resolution, the Russian diplomat said, using Russian diplomatic language for a set of maximalist demands that involve the acceptance of full Russian sovereignty over the Donbas as well as the military reduction of the country – a non-starter for Ukraine and its European partners.

The Ukrainian president stated conversations concerning the front line were the "commencement of dialogue" but that Russia was "employing all tactics" to prevent dialogue.

He additionally stated the sole subject that could make Moscow "become engaged" was that of the provision of distance-capable munitions to Ukraine.

Strategic Factors

The Russian president's spontaneous discussion with the US leader last Thursday came ahead of rumors that the United States was preparing to send distance-capable weapons to Ukraine that could potentially strike Russian territory.

The Ukrainian leader asserted it was the missile discussion that had compelled Moscow to participate in talks. The conversation concerning the weapons systems had turned out to be a "significant input" in diplomacy", he remarked.