Description: US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin would not meet in Budapest anytime soon according to sources from both the White House and the Kremlin. The announcement arrives after Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov and his American counterpart, Marco Rubio, held a phone call where Lavrov reportedly reiterated Russia’s positions for ending the war in Ukraine and refused Trump’s proposal for an immediate ceasefire. The second leaders’ summit was supposed to take place this week or the next, depending on the speed of preparations, in Budapest, Hungary, however, US President Trump stated that he wasn’t willing to waste time since Russia was unwilling to compromise or discuss concrete measures for ending the war in Ukraine. NATO and EU countries are set to hold a meeting on Friday, where the countries pertaining to the coalition of the willing alliance would discuss further support for Ukraine by using the frozen Russian foreign assets.
Impact: The cancellation and postponement of the leaders meeting was an expected outcome considering the lack of diplomatic traction that Trump gathered from the phone call with Putin and the meeting with Zelenskyy. Russia’s position remains unchanged, which leaves Ukraine solely dependent on support from its European partners which have reportedly formed their own 12 – point peace plan initially focusing on establishing a potential ceasefire. The reluctance from the US to put its weight behind fully supporting Ukraine in the war and flirting with potential reparation of relations with Russia under post – war circumstances is diminishing Ukraine’s defensive and offensive potential while emboldening Russia to outline more demands. This week’s diplomatic overtures only added to the negotiating shortsightedness and diplomatic complexities of the war without providing a concise path towards the formation of a peace plan. Ukraine is left to fully commit resources towards strengthening its partnerships for rearmament with the EU while keeping the US calculative and unpredictable diplomacy at bay.