Featured Image Credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Russia, Ukraine, US News
Callum Jones
Topics: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Russia, Ukraine, US News
Donald Trump's planned meeting with Vladimir Putin has been shelved, and the US president has explained the reasoning behind it.
In August, the two world leaders met in Alaska, but it ended in a stalemate regarding brokering peace between Russia and Ukraine.
After their meeting, Trump spoke to Putin on the phone, which the POTUS described as an 'extremely frank and trustful' chat.
The pair agreed to meet in Hungary, Budapest, in the coming weeks for face-to-face talks about a ceasefire.
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However, that meeting appears to be off for now, with the White House confirming that there are 'no plans' for Trump and Putin to meet in the 'immediate future'.
Preparations for the meeting were ultimately canceled after the Kremlin shelved a preparatory conversation between Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
A White House spokesperson said on Tuesday (October 21): "An additional in-person meeting between the secretary and foreign minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future."
Meanwhile, Lavrov stated: "Russia has not changed its position compared to the understandings that were reached during the Alaska summit," adding that Russia was only interested in 'long-term, sustainable peace'.
Trump has since gone on to reveal that face-to-face talks have ultimately been canceled as he did not want to partake in a 'wasted meeting'.
When asked about the meeting being 'put on hold' by reporters at the Oval Office, the 79-year-old said: "No, no I don't want to have a wasted meeting. I don't want to have a waste of time, so I'll see what happens."
He continued to say that they did 'all of these great peace deals', adding: "But this one, and I said go to the line, go to the line of battle. The battlefield lines, and you pull back and you go home and everybody takes some time off, so we'll see what happens."
The US president backed a proposed ceasefire plan on Monday (October 20) that would freeze the conflict on the current front line - a proposal also supported by Kyiv and European leaders.
"Let it be cut the way it is," Trump said (via the BBC). "I said: cut and stop at the battle line. Go home. Stop fighting, stop killing people."
Putin has continued to push back on this proposed peace plan, however, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying that 'the consistency of Russia's position doesn't change'.
It comes after a report by the Financial Times suggesting that things turned sour between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the latter's visit to the White House last week.