The Kremlin on October 21st said there was “no precise timeframe” for a summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on Ukraine and doused hopes for a swift preparatory meeting to finalise the talks.
Following a phone call last week, the Russian and U.S. leaders Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump announced they would meet in Budapest for talks on resolving the war in Ukraine, triggered by war. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. counterpart Marco Rubio spoke on October 20th to discuss preparations for the summit, and are expected to meet in person to finalise details.
Trump said the meeting with Putin could take place within two weeks, though that timeline appears to be slipping away as Moscow now said laying the groundwork for the meeting “could take time.”
“No precise timeframe was initially set here,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including from AFP, at a briefing on Tuesday, October 21st. Asked if the summit could be postponed, Peskov said: “You can’t postpone something that hasn’t been set in stone … Preparation is needed, serious preparation.”
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said earlier on October 21st it was “premature” to talk about details of a preparatory meeting between Lavrov and Rubio.
“Neither before the phone call nor during yesterday’s call was the meeting specifically raised,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agencies.
Trump, who previously claimed he could settle the Ukraine war in a matter of hours, has shown frustration with both Moscow and Kyiv over the failure to broker peace. Putin has rejected multiple calls for a ceasefire and stuck to a list of hardline demands that Kyiv sees as unacceptable.
A previous summit in August, between Putin and Trump in Alaska ended early with no breakthrough towards a peace deal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is pushing to attend the summit in Budapest, has ruled out territorial concessions. Ukraine says a meeting between Putin and Zelensky is needed to make progress, but the Kremlin has ruled out talks with the Ukrainian leader until a peace deal is practically agreed.
