The White House rescinded its offer to host a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hungary Tuesday.
The decision was made after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which White House sources told CNN led Rubio to conclude the two countries have “divergent expectations” about ending the war in Ukraine.
Initially, it was reported that the meeting would be “put on hold for the time being.” Later in the day, a White House official told The Independent there are “no plans” for the two world leaders to meet in-person “in the immediate future,”after the two diplomats had a “productive call” that rendered an in-person meeting “not necessary.”
Trump announced the summit in Budapest, Hungary, “within two weeks or so” Friday, after speaking with Putin over the phone ahead of his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House to discuss a potential arms exchange.
The U.S. leader intimated that Putin begged him to block the arms deal after hinting at the idea, involving the exchange of U.S. Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles for Ukrainian drones to replenish the country’s dwindling weapons stockpile.
Hungary is currently trying to pull out of the ICC, though it likely would not have cooperated regardless, as Hungarian President Viktor Orban remains one of Putin’s closest E.U. allies.
Trump and Putin most recently met for a summit in Anchorage, Alaska, in August.
The meeting cancelation comes as the war in Ukraine approaches its fourth anniversary in February after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
