According to a White House official, US President Donald Trump has “no plans” to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the immediate future. Trump announced last Thursday that he and the Russian president would meet in Budapest in two weeks to talk about the conflict in Ukraine.
This week was scheduled to see a preparatory meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov; however, the White House stated such a meeting was no longer “necessary” after the two had a “productive” phone conversation. The White House did not elaborate on the reasons behind the postponement of the negotiations.
However, significant discrepancies between US plans and Russia’s peace demands became more apparent this week, seemingly ending the two leaders’ hopes of meeting. One day before his White House meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump had spoken with Putin on the phone about holding a summit in Budapest.
According to some accounts, Zelensky and Trump had a “shouting match” during their negotiations. According to sources, Trump had pushed Zelensky up vast sections of territory in the Donbas, which are eastern Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, as part of a deal with Russia. Zelensky, however, has consistently maintained that Ukraine cannot give up the Donbas territories it still controls because Russia may use them as a base for future attacks.
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