The White House said that there are no plans for a second meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Last week, Trump announced that he plans to meet with Putin in Hungary in the coming months.
“Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call,” a White House official explained. “Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future.”
On Thursday, Trump and Putin spoke on the phone. “At the conclusion of the call, we agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week,” The President wrote on Truth Social after the call. “President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on the phone Monday. “A constructive discussion of potential specific steps in the interests of implementing the understandings reached during the October 16 phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump was held,” the Russian Foreign Ministry stated following the call.
Reuters reported that Rubio and Lavrov were planning to meet in person this week. It now appears that both the meeting between top officials and leaders is off.
While both Washington and Moscow described the call between Rubio and Lavrov as positive, the Russian foreign minister stated that the Kremlin’s position has not changed since Trump last met with Putin.
“I believe American officials have concluded that Russia’s position has remained largely unchanged over time and remains within the bounds of its initial maximalist demands,” Lavrov said. “Russia has not altered its positions compared to understandings and prolonged negotiations between Putin and Trump in Alaska.”
On Friday, Trump met with Ukrainian President Zelensky in the White House. The meeting did not go well for the Ukrainian leader. Trump requested Zelensky’s request for Tomahawk missiles and pressed him to agree to a deal to end the war.
