🔗 Share this article

There are "no arrangements" for US President Donald Trump to confer with Russian President Putin "in the immediate future", a administration representative has stated.

Recently the US president said he and the Russian president would hold talks in Budapest soon to examine the ongoing hostilities.

A planning session between America's top diplomat Secretary Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov was due to be held this week - but the White House said the two had had a "constructive" discussion and that a meeting was no longer "required".

The administration withheld additional specifics on the reason the negotiations had been put on hold.

Background Context

The US president had raised the possibility of a Budapest summit over the phone with the Russian leader, a day before hosting Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.

Some reports claimed his meeting with the Ukrainian leader had been a "heated exchange", with sources suggesting Trump had pressured him to give up significant territories of Ukraine's east as part of a settlement with Moscow.

However, on this week the American president supported a truce plan endorsed by Kyiv and European leaders to freeze the hostilities on the present positions.

"Freeze the lines where it stands," he stated.

Moscow has consistently objected against halting the present battle positions.

Moscow was only interested in "long-term, sustainable peace", Lavrov said on this week, implying that halting hostilities would merely represent a short-term truce.

Diplomatic Positions

The "underlying reasons" of the hostilities required resolution, Lavrov stated, using Russian diplomatic language for a range of extensive requirements that encompass the acknowledgment of complete Moscow control over the Donbas as well as the military reduction of the country – a unacceptable proposition for Kyiv and its European partners.

The Ukrainian president said talks regarding the front line were the "beginning of diplomacy" but that Russia was "employing all tactics" to evade negotiations.

He additionally stated the only topic that could make Moscow "become engaged" was that of the delivery of extended-range arms to the Ukrainian military.

Military Considerations

The Russian president's unscheduled call with the US leader recently came ahead of speculation that the US was planning to provide distance-capable weapons to Ukrainian forces that could possibly hit deep into Russia.

Zelensky asserted it was the Tomahawks issue that had pressured the Kremlin to enter into dialogue. The talk about the missiles had turned out to be a "valuable contribution" in diplomacy", he added.