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president Donald Trump canceled his meeting with the Russian president in Budapest, Hungary Vladimir Putin because he did not see sufficient progress towards peace – although, according to the White House, a future summit was not ruled out.
While Trump and Putin were talking on the phone on October 16, Plans for the meeting were scrapped after Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday.
Trump “unfortunately feels that he hasn’t seen enough interest from the Russian side recently to take sufficient action to move the ball forward toward peace,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “So a meeting between these two leaders is not entirely off the table. I think the president and the entire administration hope that one day that can happen again, but we want to make sure that this meeting has a tangible positive outcome and that the president’s time is used wisely.”
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks at a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 6, 2025. (Associated Press)
Trump has also signaled in recent days that his patience with Russia has been wearing thin, and his administration on Wednesday imposed tough sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies.
Specifically, the sanctions freeze all U.S.-related assets of the two companies and prohibit U.S. citizens from doing business with them.
In response, Putin called the sanctions an “unfriendly act” and warned that they could cause global oil prices to rise. However, he also said that the sanctions would not have a major impact on Moscow’s economy.
While Trump has regularly said in recent months that he is having pleasant talks with Putin, he has also expressed frustration at the lack of progress in his efforts to mediate an end to the conflict. Trump also said Tuesday that he didn’t want to have a “wasted meeting” with Putin in Hungary.
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President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Anchorage, Alaska. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
“The president wants to see action, not just talk,” Leavitt said. “And I think the president is extremely motivated by the success of his Middle East peace deal to get things done, and he wants this war to end. He’s been saying this for nine months now that he’s been in office, and he’s becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress by either side in this war.”
Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday to discuss ongoing negotiations to end the conflict.
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters that the meeting with Putin “didn’t feel right” and explained why he was not interested in arming Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, as he had previously suggested.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with President Donald Trump in Washington DC, USA on August 19, 2025. (Ukrainian Presidency / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“There’s a huge learning curve with the tomahawk. It’s a very powerful weapon, a very precise weapon,” Trump said Wednesday. “And maybe that’s what makes it so complex. But it’s going to take a year. It’s going to take a year of intense training to learn how to use it, and we know how to use it. And we’re not going to teach it to other people. It’s just going to be too far in the future.”
Meanwhile, Trump recently expressed skepticism about whether Ukraine can win against Russia.
“They could still win it. I don’t think they will, but they could still win it,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.