Russia scrambled on Wednesday to salvage the prospect of in-person talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin after they were unceremoniously put on hold.
Trump said on Tuesday that he didn’t want “to have a wasted meeting” with Putin, which was set to take place in Hungary in the next few weeks, as it became clear that Russia opposes the idea of an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine.
“I don’t want to have a waste of time — so we’ll see what happens,” Trump said following a call on Monday between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
After the call, Russia’s top diplomat told reporters in Moscow that he had told Rubio that “Russia has not changed its position” since Trump and Putin met in Alaska in August, and that while Moscow wanted a “lasting and sustainable peace,” it was not interested in an “immediate ceasefire that will lead to nothing.”
After those comments, and with Trump seemingly pouring cold water on the idea of meeting Putin again, the Kremlin appeared to go into damage limitation mode, insisting on Wednesday that the dates for the summit in Budapest “weren’t set” but that preparations were still underway.
