Ahmed Kamel – Egypt Daily News
Efforts to organize a high-profile summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest have been placed on hold, as both Washington and Moscow dig in on their respective positions regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine.
A senior White House official confirmed to NBC News that while preliminary discussions had taken place, the planning for the proposed summit is now paused, reflecting a broader stalemate in diplomatic progress.
According to the official, President Trump decided to delay further planning after being briefed on what was described as a “productive” phone conversation on Monday between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The call, while positive in tone, reportedly made it clear that neither side is yet ready to move toward a serious resolution of the conflict.
“Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call,” a second White House official said. “Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the Secretary and the Foreign Minister is not necessary at this time, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future.”
Still, another phone call between Rubio and Lavrov is expected as soon as this week, and both diplomats are slated to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in the coming days. While no meeting between Trump and Putin is currently scheduled, officials have not ruled out the possibility in the future.
Kremlin Pushes Back on Delay Narrative
Despite reports from Western media outlets suggesting a delay, Russian officials denied that they were obstructing efforts to arrange the summit or that they had changed their conditions for peace.
“We cannot postpone what has not been agreed upon,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state-run TASS news agency on Tuesday, in response to a CNN report that the planned meeting between Rubio and Lavrov had been indefinitely postponed. He emphasized that no formal date or location had ever been finalized.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov echoed that position, telling reporters, “You can’t postpone something that hasn’t been agreed upon. Both sides have acknowledged that this may take time. No exact timeline was set from the beginning.”
Lavrov, speaking publicly on Tuesday, confirmed his call with Rubio and noted that both sides were now working to establish a framework for potential talks between the two leaders. “The key point is not the venue or timing,” Lavrov said, “but how we proceed substantively on the tasks agreed upon in Anchorage.”
Lavrov was referring to the last face-to-face meeting between Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, in August. That meeting was widely seen as a breakthrough in reopening U.S.-Russia communication channels but failed to yield concrete agreements on ending the Ukraine war.
Trump’s Balancing Act on Ukraine
President Trump, who has pursued a more transactional and less interventionist approach to foreign policy, has walked a fine line between pressuring Moscow and avoiding deeper American entanglement in the war. Following a phone call with Putin and a separate meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington last week, Trump publicly called for an immediate halt to fighting along the current frontlines.
“Stop at the battle line go home, stop fighting, stop killing people,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One. “They can negotiate something later on down the line.”
That stance drew praise from European allies but also exposed the gap between Western calls for a full Russian withdrawal and Trump’s pragmatic approach, which focuses on freezing the conflict rather than resolving it outright.
In a joint statement issued Tuesday, leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Ukraine, and the European Union backed Trump’s push to stop the violence but also emphasized that Moscow appeared unwilling to pursue a peace agreement at this stage.
“We strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately, and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations,” the statement read. “We must ramp up the pressure on Russia’s economy and its defense industry until President Putin is ready to make peace.”
Ukraine Urges Trump to Increase Pressure
In a pre-recorded interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Zelenskyy said he welcomed Trump’s efforts to broker peace but urged him to take a tougher stance against Putin. He also expressed a willingness to participate in the proposed summit in Budapest.
“I am ready to be there, to be part of the talks,” Zelenskyy said, “but we need the U.S. to hold Russia accountable not just ask nicely.”
Hungary, the proposed host for the Trump-Putin summit, has remained silent on the delays. However, its foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, was in Washington on Tuesday and hinted at the stakes involved. In a Facebook post, he wrote: “We have some serious days ahead.”
As of now, efforts to revive the summit remain suspended, with both sides continuing internal consultations. U.S. officials say communication remains open, but unless Russia signals genuine willingness to compromise, a Trump-Putin meeting may remain elusive, at least for the foreseeable future.
