A few days after US President Donald Trump said he planned to meet with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Budapest, he has announced that he will not do so and does not want to waste time on unsuccessful talks, writes the BBC.
The main reason for the cancellation of the meeting is Moscow’s unwillingness to immediately stop hostilities along the current front line. The White House has announced that there are no plans to hold a meeting between Trump and Putin in the near future. This week, the differences in the US and Russian approaches to the issue of a ceasefire in Ukraine have become very clear. The US president met with the Russian dictator on August 15 in Alaska, but then the talks ended without any tangible result. The White House’s decision to cancel the plans is seen as avoiding a similar scenario.
A European official has indicated that the Russians probably wanted too much, and the Americans have understood that Trump will not be able to conclude an agreement in Budapest. A meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was also scheduled for this week, but it was canceled because the two had a productive phone conversation and there was no need to meet in person.
On the 20th of October,
Trump agreed to the offer proposed by Kiev and European leaders to stop hostilities within the current front line.
Russia opposes this.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that such an offer has been made to Russia regularly, but Moscow’s position has not changed. Lavrov has stated that Moscow is only interested in long-term peace, thus implying that freezing the front line would only be a temporary solution. The minister said that the root of the conflict must be dealt with, which in Moscow’s vocabulary means the complete return of the Donbas region to the Russians and the demilitarization of Ukraine. This is unacceptable to neither Ukrainians nor Europe.
European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on the 21st of October that peace talks can only begin after the front line is frozen, and accused Russia of not taking the end of the war seriously. Zelensky pointed out that the discussion about freezing the front line is the beginning of diplomatic talks, but Russia is avoiding them. The only thing that makes Moscow start thinking is the delivery of long-range missiles to Ukrainians.
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