The White House has said there are now no plans for a summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest 'in the immediate future', as efforts to end the war in Ukraine stall.
The announcement followed a round of diplomacy last week that failed to yield significant progress. A phone call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saw Lavrov insist that Russia's negotiating position remained unchanged, citing understandings from a previous Alaska summit.
Trump told reporters he did not want a 'wasted meeting' with Putin. Earlier, Putin had proposed giving up parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in exchange for all of Donetsk, but Trump rejected that plan, saying Donetsk should be 'cut the way it is'.
Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington on Friday, where the idea of territorial concessions was floated but rejected by Kyiv. Ukraine's efforts to secure US-supplied Tomahawk cruise missiles also stalled, with Moscow warning that such weapons would be considered escalatory.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy and the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and others endorsed Trump's call for a ceasefire along current frontlines, emphasising that the current line of contact should be the starting point for negotiations.
Ukraine has indicated willingness to accept a ceasefire on existing frontlines, effectively accepting Russia's de facto occupation of about a fifth of the country. Reports have emerged that Ukraine and its European allies are working on a 12-point ceasefire proposal, overseen by a peace board chaired by Trump.
