A telephone conversation between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been characterized as “productive,” but it will not lead to an immediate meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a US official confirmed Tuesday. The announcement represents a significant departure from Trump’s recent social media claims about a Budapest summit.
The Monday phone call between the top diplomats was originally intended to facilitate arrangements for a presidential meeting, but American officials have concluded that no further in-person consultations between the foreign ministers are required. This decision effectively postpones any potential Trump-Putin gathering indefinitely, despite Trump’s earlier timeline of two weeks.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the US administration official provided no specific explanation for why the productive ministerial call did not result in concrete summit plans. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has adopted a similar cautious approach, with Russian officials announcing Tuesday that no “precise timeframe” has been established for a Trump-Putin meeting.
The diplomatic uncertainty originated from a Thursday telephone conversation between Trump and Putin that the American president initially interpreted as significant progress. Trump’s optimism led him to announce on social media that he would meet Putin in Budapest within two weeks, timing the announcement to occur just before his scheduled discussion with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about supplying Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles.
Trump’s approach to Putin has been marked by abrupt policy changes, including the August decision to welcome Putin to Alaska for the Russian leader’s first visit to Western soil since launching the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Despite Trump’s previous claims that his personal chemistry with Putin would allow him to end the war within a day of returning to the White House, he has recently acknowledged experiencing frustrations in dealing with the Russian president.