Fresh off of a humiliating collapse of his much touted ceasefire in Gaza and in the third week of a government shutdown caused by his inability to negotiate with Senate Democrats, Donald Trump, self described master negotiator, can now add the implosion of talks with Russia to end the Ukraine war he had hyped last week to his list of recent diplomatic failures.
Were these not matters of national and international stability with millions of lives on the line, one could be excused for feeling a knee jerk desire to laugh at the embarrassing display of chronic incompetence presented by Donald Trump on a daily basis
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/21/trump-putin-summit-uncertain-00616500President Donald Trump’s second summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin is off.
The White House said Tuesday that the planned meeting in Budapest, announced by Trump just last week after his two-hour phone call with Putin, was no longer in the works after Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call,” said a White House official granted anonymity to discuss the plans. “Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future.”
The rapid dissolution of plans for another summit between Trump and Putin just two months after they met in Alaska stemmed again from Russia’s refusal to budge from its maximalist positions on what it would take for it to halt its war in Ukraine.
In a press conference in Moscow Tuesday, Lavrov said he informed Rubio that Russia’s position — that a peace agreement must come before a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine — has not changed. And he said he was surprised by a CNN report about disagreement during the call over Russia’s “maximalist” demands.
