The meeting was announced last week and was supposed to take place in Budapest, Hungary, in the near future.
Trump has not yet commented publicly about the change in plans for his meeting with Putin.
The Kremlin didn’t seem to be in a rush to get Trump and Putin together again either.
“We need to end this war, and only pressure will lead to peace,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday in a Telegram post.
“We strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately, and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations,” the leaders’ statement said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump decided to postpone his plan to meet quickly with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, a U.S. A. Tuesday, an official revealed the most recent development in his haphazard attempts to end the conflict in Ukraine.
It was announced last week that the meeting would soon be held in Budapest, Hungary. But following a phone conversation between U. S. . According to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity and lacked public speaking authority, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump and Putin’s decision to postpone a meeting is expected to appease European leaders who have charged Putin with using diplomacy as a means of gaining ground on the battlefield.
The leaders, which included the French president, German chancellor, and British prime minister, stated that they were against any attempt by Trump to force Ukraine to give up territory that Russian forces had taken in exchange for peace.
Despite some concerns regarding the legality and ramifications of such a move, they also intend to move forward with plans to use billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine’s war efforts.
Trump has not yet made any public remarks regarding the modification of his meeting with Putin. Trump’s stalled efforts to end a war that started nearly four years ago were not advanced by their previous meeting in August in Alaska.
Additionally, it appeared that the Kremlin was not in a rush to reunite Trump and Putin. Prior to a meeting, “preparation is needed, serious preparation,” stated Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson, on Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been attempting to fortify Ukraine’s stance by requesting long-range Tomahawk missiles from the United States. A. even though Trump has been evasive about whether he would supply them.
“Only pressure will bring about peace, and we must put an end to this war,” Zelenskyy stated in a Telegram post on Tuesday.
He pointed out that when it appeared that Tomahawk missiles might be an option last week, Putin went back to talking to Trump. However, Zelenskyy claimed that “the Russians started to try to drop diplomacy, postpone the dialogue, as soon as the pressure eased a little.”.
An anonymous White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly said that Trump will meet with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday. The official gave no specifics regarding Trump’s agenda for the negotiations.
Delivery of weapons to Ukraine, many of which were bought from the United States, has been coordinated by the military alliance. A. by European nations and Canada. On Friday, the Coalition of the Willing, a group of 35 nations that back Ukraine, is scheduled to meet in London.
Over the year, Trump’s position on the war has changed. Before becoming impatient with Putin’s stubbornness, he concentrated on forcing Ukraine to make compromises. Trump frequently laments that he believed the war could have been ended more easily because of his cordial relationship with his Russian counterpart.
Trump retracted his long-standing assertion that Ukraine would have to cede land last month, implying that it could regain all of the territory it had lost to Russia. Trump, however, changed his stance once more after speaking with Putin on the phone last week and meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday. He urged Kyiv and Moscow to “stop where they are” in the conflict, which has lasted more than three years.
Trump declared on Sunday that the industrial Donbas region in eastern Ukraine should be “cut up,” with Russia controlling the majority of it.
Trump stated Monday that although he believes Ukraine has the potential to defeat Russia in the end, he is now skeptical that it will occur.
Leaders in Europe and Ukraine are making a concerted effort to retain Trump.
According to the leaders’ statement, “We deeply support President Trump’s position that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations and that the fighting should stop immediately.”. Putin’s continued preference for violence and devastation is evident to all. “.”.
Although approximately one-fifth of Ukraine is occupied by Russia, Kyiv officials do not accept the division of their nation in exchange for peace.
Ukrainian and European officials are also concerned that a conflict that is halted on the current front line may worsen, with occupied regions of Ukraine providing Moscow with a base from which to launch future attacks.
The Ukrainian leaders’ statement, the U.S. K. EU officials arrived early in what Zelenskyy said Monday would be a week that is “very active in diplomacy,” including representatives from Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Denmark. “.”.
At an EU summit Thursday in Brussels, more international economic sanctions on Russia are expected to be discussed.
“Until Putin is prepared to make peace, we need to increase the pressure on Russia’s economy and defense sector,” the statement released on Tuesday stated.
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