Plans for a summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have stalled despite recent high-level diplomatic contact between the two nations, a US official confirmed Tuesday. The announcement contradicts Trump’s recent social media declaration that he would meet the Russian leader in Budapest within two weeks.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio conducted a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday, a call originally intended to arrange logistics for a presidential summit. However, American officials have now concluded that no additional in-person meeting between the secretaries is necessary, effectively placing any Trump-Putin gathering on indefinite hold.
The US administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, characterized the Monday telephone exchange as “productive,” suggesting substantive discussions occurred despite the absence of concrete summit plans. The Kremlin has adopted a similar stance, with Russian officials announcing Tuesday that there is no “precise timeframe” for organizing a meeting between Trump and Putin.
The diplomatic confusion originated from a Thursday telephone call between Trump and Putin that the American president initially celebrated as progress in bilateral relations. Trump’s enthusiasm prompted him to announce on social media that he would meet Putin within two weeks in Budapest, timing the announcement to occur just before his scheduled meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss supplying Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles.
Trump’s relationship with Putin has undergone several dramatic shifts, including the controversial August decision to host Putin in Alaska for the Russian leader’s first visit to Western soil since launching the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Despite Trump’s previous claims that his personal connection with Putin would enable him to end the war within a day of returning to office, the president has recently acknowledged experiencing frustrations with the Russian leader.