President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has postponed his planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, saying he didn’t want a “wasted meeting” amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
The reversal comes just days after Trump publicly stated he would meet Putin “within two weeks” following what he described as a productive phone call aimed at advancing peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he wanted to ensure the discussion would yield meaningful progress before committing to the high-profile meeting.
“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting,” Trump said. “I don’t want to have a waste of time, so I’ll see what happens.”
A White House official later confirmed that there are “no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future,” despite earlier announcements of a Budapest summit.
Frustration Builds Over Peace Efforts
The decision follows tense talks between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington last week. According to a senior Ukrainian official, the U.S. president pressured Kyiv to concede the eastern Donbas region in exchange for peace—a proposal Ukraine swiftly rejected.
“Yes, that’s true,” the Ukrainian official told AFP when asked if Trump urged Zelensky to pull out of areas still under Ukrainian control.
Zelensky reportedly left the White House empty-handed, after Trump declined to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles—a weapons request the Ukrainian leader has made repeatedly to help counter Russian attacks.
Trump’s attempt to balance diplomatic overtures to both Kyiv and Moscow appears to have hit a stalemate. “A lot of things are happening on the war front,” Trump said cryptically when asked what led to his change of heart on the Putin summit.
U.S. and Russia Cancel Diplomatic Preparations
Further complicating matters, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have also called off a preparatory meeting that was meant to finalize summit details. Both sides confirmed the cancellation after a phone call on Monday.
Trump’s efforts to use his personal rapport with Putin to broker an end to the conflict have repeatedly faltered. Officials in Kyiv describe the diplomatic process as “going in circles,” as Ukraine continues to push back against Russian forces occupying nearly 20% of its territory.
Global Reactions and European Pushback
The Kremlin confirmed there is currently “no precise date” for a new Trump-Putin meeting. The two leaders last met in Alaska in August but failed to make headway on key peace terms.
Meanwhile, European leaders have pushed back against any deal requiring Ukraine to give up land. In a joint statement Tuesday, leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and Britain’s Keir Starmer reaffirmed their stance that Russia “is not serious about peace.”
“We strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately,” the statement read. “The current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is expected in Washington this week for consultations with Trump, while EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday to coordinate ongoing military and financial support for Ukraine.
The war, now in its fourth year since Russia’s 2022 invasion, has left tens of thousands dead and large swaths of eastern Ukraine in ruins. Despite mounting international pressure, Moscow maintains control over roughly one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Donbas.
As Trump faces growing challenges in his efforts to mediate the war, analysts suggest the White House’s next steps could define not only U.S.-Russia relations—but also the broader trajectory of the conflict itself.
