&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "'We’ll see what happens...': Trump reveals REAL reason why he cancelled Budapest meeting with Putin")
US President Donald Trump has confirmed on Tuesday (Oct 22) that his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin has been put on hold. Issuing his remark from the White House, Trump said that he didn’t want a “wasted meeting” with his Russian counterpart. This comes after Russia rejected Trump's demand for a ceasefire in the war with Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Trump’s demand for “an immediate ceasefire, which has suddenly become a topic of discussion again,” was contrary to what was agreed at the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska in August. The Kremlin pressed that its stance on peace remains unchanged. Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said that he would join the summit between Trump and Putin in Budapest if he is invited.
“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting, I don’t want to have a waste of time — so we’ll see what happens,” Trump said in remarks at the White House on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “No precise timeframe was initially set here” and that “Preparation is needed, serious preparation.”
Trump had announced last week that he will be meeting Putin in Budapest, Hungary. However, the meeting was called off after a call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday. The two were set to meet this week or next but the White House said that both had a "productive" call and that a meeting was no longer "necessary." The White House officials also confirmed to Reuters that there are "no plans" for US President Donald Trump to meet Russia's Vladimir Putin “in the immediate future.” The White House did not share any further details on why the talks had been paused.
Trump and Putin earlier met in August during a summit in Alaska, which produced no concrete output to end the war in Ukraine. The White House decision to shelve the plans for a second Trump-Putin summit could be as Washington might to avoid another similar scenario.
