President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that any conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be “a waste of time,” and therefore he would be holding off on face-to-face interaction.
A meeting was scheduled to be held in Budapest, Hungary, but after a Monday phone call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the meeting was postponed.
“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting. I don’t want to have a waste of time,” Trump said. “So we’ll see what happens. We haven’t made a determination.”
On Tuesday, Lavrov made it clear that Russia was not keen on agreeing to a ceasefire anytime soon, making it the “basic difference which is existing now between Russia and the United States,” Andrei Fedorov, former deputy foreign minister of Russia, told NBC News.
Rubio said “he did not want to waste his time and (the) president’s time if Russia was not prepared to discuss a ceasefire along the current front line,” according to Fedorov.
On the other hand, “Lavrov indicated that if the U.S. would not adhere to the Alaska agreement, there would be no further talks,” he added, referring to the meeting Trump and Putin had in Alaska in August.
The news further stalls the White House’s efforts to broker a peace agreement between the two nations, which have been engaged in conflict since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump had previously requested that Ukraine agree that it would concede land taken over by Russia during the war, but last month changed his tune. “I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” he posted on Truth Social. “And, who knows, maybe even go further than that! Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act.”
On Tuesday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement with other European leaders that they agree with Trump on the war ending immediately, “and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations. We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force,” per Newsweek.
Zelenskyy said that only force will bring Russia to the table.
“Russia does not feel enough pressure for dragging out the war,” he said on social media Wednesday following a Russian strike Tuesday night that reportedly hit a kindergarten in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
He continued, “Everyone who is now helping Ukraine with air defense systems and missiles for them is protecting lives. We are grateful for that. And everyone who helps Ukraine with long-range capabilities will bring the end of the war closer.”