Trump doesn’t want ‘wasted time’ with Putin as plan for Budapest meeting is called off

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday his plan for a swift meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin was on hold because he didn’t want it to be a “waste of time”, the latest twist in Trump’s stop-and-go effort to resolve the war in Ukraine.

The decision to hold off on the meeting in Budapest, Hungary, which Trump had announced last week, was made following a call on Monday between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting,” Trump said. “I don’t want to have a waste of time, so we’ll see what happens.”

Trump's comments came after Lavrov made clear that Russia is opposed to an immediate ceasefire that Trump proposed last week, telling journalists in Moscow that it would go against what Putin and Trump agreed upon in Alaska in August.

The Kremlin's Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also said Tuesday that “preparation is needed, serious preparation” before a meeting.

Earlier, a White House official had stated there were "no plans" for Trump to meet Putin in the immediate future.

Both leaders last met in Alaska in August, but the encounter did not advance Trump’s stalled attempts to end a war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Change in plan likely a relief for EU leaders

The latest shift in the plan for a second meeting with Putin will likely come as a relief to European leaders, who accuse the Russian leader of stalling for time with diplomacy while trying to gain ground on the battlefield.

The leaders — including the British prime minister, French president and German chancellor — said they opposed any push to make Ukraine surrender land captured by Russian forces in return for peace, as Trump most recently has suggested.

They also plan to push forward with plans to use billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets to help fund Ukraine’s war efforts, despite some misgivings about the legality and consequences of such a step.

A meeting of the Coalition of the Willing — a group of 35 countries that support Ukraine — is due to take place in London on Friday.

Ukraine wants Tomahawk missiles from the US

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to maintain pressure from Washington, and military strength is what's needed to deter Moscow in its war against his country.

Zelenskyy has been trying to strengthen Ukraine’s position by seeking long-range Tomahawk missiles from the US, although Trump has waffled on whether he would provide them.

“We need to end this war, and only pressure will lead to peace,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday in a Telegram post.

He noted that Putin returned to diplomacy and called Trump last week when it looked like Tomahawk missiles were a possibility. But “as soon as the pressure eased a little, the Russians began to try to drop diplomacy, postpone the dialogue,” Zelenskyy said.

On Wednesday, Trump is expected to hold talks in the White House with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. The military alliance has been coordinating deliveries of weapons to Ukraine, many of them purchased from the US by Canada and European countries.

How Trump’s stance on the war has shifted

Trump's rhetoric on Russia's war on Ukraine has been shifting all year on key issues, including whether a ceasefire should come before longer-term peace talks, and whether Ukraine could win back land seized by Russia during almost four years of fighting.

Initially focusing on pressuring Ukraine to make concessions, the US leader then grew frustrated with Putin’s intransigence. Trump often complains that he thought his good relationship with his Russian counterpart would have made it easier to end the war.

On Monday, Trump said that while he thinks it is possible that Ukraine can ultimately defeat Russia, he’s now doubtful it will happen.

And in September, he reversed his long-held position that Ukraine would have to give up land and suggested it could win back all the territory it has lost to Russia.

But after a phone call with Putin last week and a subsequent meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday, Trump shifted his position again and called on Kyiv and Moscow to “stop where they are” and end the war.

Russia currently occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine, but carving up their country in return for peace is unacceptable to Kyiv and EU leaders who fear this will only strengthen Putin's inordinate land grab ambition and perhaps future aggression against other neighbouring states.