Trump to meet Putin in Budapest after productive" phone call with Russian leader
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hungary's capital Budapest to discuss the war in Ukraine.
“President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end. President Zelenskyy and I will be meeting tomorrow, in the Oval Office, where we will discuss my conversation with President Putin, and much more,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after what he described a "very productive" phone call with Putin on Thursday. The two-and-a-half hours meeting was held at the request of Russia. Trump did not specify the exact timing of the meeting.
The US leader also noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead a delegation of high-level advisors to meet high-level Russian officials next week in a location that has yet to be determined. At the conclusion of the call, we agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week. The United States’ initial meetings will be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with various other people, to be designated. A meeting location is to be determined,” wrote Trump.
Putin supported Trump's proposal for a meeting, with Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov describing the call between the two leaders as “highly informative and extremely frank.”
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban welcomed the meeting, saying "we are ready to host the visit". Budapest was also supposed to host the meeting between Trump and Putin in August before the two leaders decided to fly to Anchorage, Alaska.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that he will raise the issue of the US' supply of Tomahawks and other weapons to Ukraine during the meeting in the White House this week. Zelenskiy said some issues can only be discussed one-one-one. Trump on Sunday hinted that he may deliver Tomahawk long-range missiles to Ukraine "if this war doesn't get settled." With a range of around 2,300 kilometers, Tomahawks could enable Ukraine to strike Moscow with precision.
In recent months, Trump has been ramping up pressure on Moscow to halt Russia's war of invasion, now entering its fourth year. Trump's initiatives to end the war in Ukraine gained fresh momentum after his success in brokering the peace deal between Israel and Hamas, ending the war in Gaza.
