US President Donald Trump said he will meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Budapest for talks aimed at ending the Ukraine war, though he didn’t specify when.
The announcement came after the two leaders held a call on Thursday, a day before Trump hosts Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House. Trump has said the conflict is his next foreign policy priority following the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. For Zelenskyy, who is set to request US air-defense and long-range missile systems, another Trump-Putin summit is a “curveball,” a BBC journalist wrote.
The Budapest talks suggest Washington is “backing down from attempts to get tougher on Russia… in favor of a so far illusory peace deal,” the Financial Times’ Moscow bureau chief wrote.