Just days after US President Donald Trump said he planned to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest “within two weeks or so”, the summit was off and new sanctions on Moscow, the first of Trump’s second administration, were on.

When Donald Trump hung up the phone after his conversation with Vladimir Putin on October 15, he was convinced they had found common ground. The American President immediately floated the idea of an in-person summit with the Russian president in Budapest to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. The plan was to follow up on their earlier summit in Anchorage, Alaska in August 2025 that ended without a deal as both leaders touted progress.

Budapest was chosen largely because Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, maintains unusually close ties with Moscow. Trump even said during a White House press briefing: “We like Viktor Orbán. He [Putin] likes him, I like him. It’s a safe country.” But in reality, the Trump-Putin summit faced several issues and has been indefinitely postponed. On 21 October, a White House official confirmed there were no immediate plans for Trump to meet Putin. Trump himself said: “I don’t want to have a wasted meeting. I don’t want to have a waste of time.” 

Why did it ran into trouble ?

One of the main reason was Russia’s refusal of an immediate ceasefire. Trump’s core proposal was to freeze the conflict along the current front lines. Russia rejected this, insisting on further territorial gains before any further talks. That refusal undermined the summit’s foundation and made the idea politically unviable. 

Moreover, this encounter has been complicated as Putin remains under an ICC arrest warrant for alleged war crimes. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the European Union imposed a ban on Russian-registered aircraft with several EU states declaring they cannot enter their local territory.

The summit also has been postponed due to mixed political signals. While Hungary and Russia maintained that preparations continued, U.S. officials stressed that no concrete date or agenda had been set. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on October 21 that the summit couldnt be postponed, because no date was ever set: “You cannot postpone what has not been scheduled,” he told reporter.

The Kremlin, for its part, described the earlier phone call as a “constructive discussion” focused on “possible concrete steps to implement the understandings” reached between Trump and Putin. Yet, almost simultaneously, the United States imposed new sanctions on major Russian oil companies (Rosneft and Lukoil) citing Moscow’s “lack of sincerity” in pursuing peace. Around the same time, Russia conducted nuclear-force readiness exercises, including missile tests and strategic bomber deployments. These moves were widely interpreted as a calculated show of strength, adding to the growing diplomatic uncertainty surrounding the proposed summit.

The international response 

European reactions to the planned Budapest summit were sharply divided. European Commission spokesman Olof Gill and several far-right groups in the European Parliament welcomed the initiative as a step toward “lasting peace for Ukraine.” In contrast, the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys and the German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul condemned the idea, insisting that Putin belongs before the ICC and that Ukraine must be included in any talks. The French President Emmanuel Macron and the Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen expressed interest in participating alongside Kyiv. The divide reflected a deeper tension between Washington’s pragmatic approach to diplomacy and Europe’s focus on accountability and sovereignty.

In parallel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that Moscow’s diminishing interest in negotiations coincided with the United States’ decision not to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles. In his daily address, Zelensky argued that “as soon as the issue of long-range capabilities became more distant for us, Russia almost automatically became less interested in diplomacy.” He concluded that the question of long-range capabilities may represent a decisive factor in advancing peace efforts.

In summary, The Budapest Summit has been postponed indefinitely, with core disagreements (particularly over ceasefire lines and territorial control) still unresolved. Despite the pause, Hungarian and Russian officials still claim that the initiative is “not cancelled, only delayed.” Should battlefield dynamics or political pressures evolve, the prospect of a renewed summit could yet re-emerge on the diplomatic horizon.

A cura di Mathilde Laprée

Sources:

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/20/politics/trump-putin-meeting-possible-delay-russia-ukraine

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2y9je4d3go

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/10/21/russia-ukraine-trump-peace-putin-ceasefire/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/10/23/russia-trump-sanctions-rosneft-europe/?utm