// AP
The planned meeting between the Presidents of the United States and Russia, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, in Budapest has been canceled. The reason is that Moscow sent Washington a document confirming its tough demands on Ukraine. This was reported by the Financial Times, citing its sources.
On October 16, a phone conversation took place between Trump and Putin, during which the American president announced a meeting with the Russian leader in Budapest within the next two weeks. However, after this, FT claims that the Russian Foreign Ministry sent a memorandum to Washington containing Russia's demands to eliminate the "root causes" of the conflict in Ukraine. The document again raised issues of territorial concessions from Kyiv, the reduction of Ukrainian armed forces, and guarantees that Ukraine would not join NATO. Reuters also reported that Moscow sent Washington an "informal document" with these conditions, including demands for control over Donbass and indicating Russia's readiness to adhere to "maximalist demands" on Ukraine.
The situation led to a tense conversation between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Following this conversation, Rubio informed Trump that Moscow showed no interest in negotiations, as FT sources claim. The U.S. president was left "unimpressed" by Russia's position, according to another source from the publication.
Nevertheless, some American officials noted that Trump is open to future negotiations with Russia regarding a ceasefire in Ukraine if they lead to any results.
On October 22, Trump announced the cancellation of the meeting with Putin, stating: "I just felt it was wrong. I don't think we would get to the right result. So I canceled the meeting. But we will do it in the future." A day earlier, he expressed his reluctance to hold a "meaningless meeting" with the Russian president.
For his part, Vladimir Putin noted that, in his opinion, Trump was more talking about postponement than cancellation of the meeting. He clarified that the meeting itself and its location were proposed by the American side. "I agreed to this, but emphasized that such meetings need to be well prepared. <…> Now I see that the U.S. president has decided to cancel or postpone the meeting. Rather, he is talking about postponement. What can I say? Dialogue is always better than confrontation, disputes, or, even more so, war," added Putin.
