Copyright Salt Lake City Deseret News
President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin is on hold, just a week after it was announced. Trump and Putin held a phone call early last week, shortly after the U.S. president celebrated negotiating a ceasefire with Israel and Hamas. Trump had turned his attention to securing peace between Russia and Ukraine as the war nears four years long. Trump shared that he would be meeting with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, in the coming weeks to see if he could bring the “inglorious” war to an end. It would have been their second of the year after meeting in Alaska in August. However, as of Tuesday, the meeting is currently off. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a call with his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the meeting was paused shortly after, a White House official confirmed to The Associated Press. The meeting could have potentially been seen as a waste of time between the two leaders, particularly after Trump denied providing Tomahawk subsonic cruise missiles to Ukraine. The Tomahawk missiles are known for precision, speed and their ability to strike deep into Russia. When it was unclear if the Trump administration would provide Ukraine with the equipment, Putin and Russian negotiators seemed willing to come to the table with the United States. But after Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week largely confirmed the U.S. would not be giving Ukraine the Tomahawks, Putin seemed less willing to show up to the Budapest meeting. Zelenskyy shared a message once it became clear that Trump and Putin were no longer meeting, arguing that Russia is trying to delay ending the war. “As soon as the issue of long-range capabilities for Ukraine became less immediate, their interest in diplomacy faded. This signals that deep strike capabilities may hold the key to peace,” he said online. “The greater Ukraine’s long-range reach, the greater Russia’s willingness to end the war. These weeks reaffirmed it.” Zelenskyy argued that the recent actions from Putin prove that the Tomahawks are the sticking point Russia takes seriously. Last week, Trump said providing Ukraine with Tomahawks was one of the things they would discuss, and hoped Ukraine wouldn’t need the long-range technology. Zelenskyy noted his military has been successful with drone warfare, but needs the long-range missiles. Trump seemed open to the idea of the U.S. providing Ukraine with some equipment, but also said he wants to keep Tomahawks and not be “giving away things that we need to protect our country.” Zelenskyy said he would continue to engage with the U.S. about the long-range missiles, but may have set his sights on European allies instead. It is known that Trump badly wants to end the war, especially after success in Gaza. In remarks earlier Tuesday to Republican senators, Trump claimed he had ended eight wars, and the ninth would be “coming.” But in remarks to reporters from the Oval Office later on Tuesday, Trump appeared to brush off the U.S. involvement in the war, noting that the war “doesn’t really affect us” and the U.S. is indirectly supporting Ukraine through NATO. “We did all of these great deals, great peace deals. They’re all peace deals, agreements, solid agreements, every single of one them, but this one, and I said, ‘go back to the line. Go to the line of battle ... and you pull back and you go home and everybody takes some time off,’” Trump said. “Because you got two countries that are killing each other. Two countries are losing five-to-seven-thousand soldiers a week.” “So, we’ll see what happens. We haven’t made a determination,” he added.
