Arrangements for Trump-Putin Talks Delayed Shortly After Hungarian Capital Talks Suggested
There are "no preparations" for American leader Donald Trump to confer with Russian President Putin "in the immediate future", a White House official has declared.
Recently Trump indicated he and the Kremlin leader would hold talks in Hungary's capital in the coming fortnight to discuss the ongoing hostilities.
A preparatory meeting between America's top diplomat Secretary Rubio and his opposite number Foreign Minister Lavrov was scheduled to occur this week - but the White House said the two had had a "productive" discussion and that a meeting was no longer "required".
The White House withheld any more details on the reason the negotiations had been delayed.
Previous Developments
Trump had raised the possibility of a Budapest summit over the phone with the Russian leader, a day before hosting Ukrainian President President Zelensky in the Oval Office.
Certain accounts claimed his talks with the Ukrainian leader had been a "shouting match", with those familiar claiming the president had pressured him to relinquish large areas of Ukraine's east as part of a agreement with Russia.
Yet, on this week the American president supported a truce plan supported by Ukraine and European leaders to freeze the war on the present positions.
"Leave it as is in its current state," he remarked.
Moscow has repeatedly pushed back against pausing the existing front lines.
Moscow was only interested in "long-term, sustainable peace", Russia's foreign minister said on Tuesday, indicating that freezing the front line would merely represent a brief pause.
Diplomatic Positions
The "root causes" of the war needed to be addressed, the Russian diplomat stated, using Moscow's terminology for a set of maximalist demands that involve the recognition of full Russian sovereignty over the eastern region as well as the demilitarisation of the country – a unacceptable proposition for Kyiv and its Western allies.
The Ukrainian president said discussions about the current lines were the "commencement of dialogue" but that Russia was "taking all measures" to avoid diplomacy.
He also said the only topic that could make Moscow "pay attention" was that of the supply of extended-range arms to the Ukrainian military.
Military Considerations
Putin's spontaneous discussion with Trump recently came ahead of rumors that the United States was planning to provide extended-range cruise missiles to Ukrainian forces that could possibly hit deep into Russia.
The Ukrainian leader asserted it was the Tomahawks issue that had pressured the Kremlin to participate in talks. The conversation concerning the weapons systems had turned out to be a "valuable contribution" in international relations", he commented.