(Reuters) – The United States has canceled a planned summit in Budapest between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin following Russia’s firm stance on hard-line demands on Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
The decision was made after a tense phone call between the two countries’ top diplomats, the Financial Times said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Reuters could not immediately verify the FT report. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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The Kremlin said on Friday that statements from the Russian Foreign Ministry and the US State Department should be taken into account, not press reports.
Plans for a summit in Budapest this month between Trump and Putin were put on hold after Moscow maintained demands, including that Ukraine cede more territory, as a condition of a ceasefire.
Trump supported Ukraine’s call for an immediate ceasefire on current lines.
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Days after Trump and Putin agreed to meet in the Hungarian capital to discuss how to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry sent a memo to Washington emphasizing the same demands to address what Putin calls the “root causes” of his invasion, which include territorial concessions, a sharp reduction in Ukraine’s armed forces and assurances that it will never join the Western military alliance North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the newspaper reported.
The US then canceled the summit following a call between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after which Rubio told Trump that Moscow was not showing a willingness to negotiate, the FT report added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said this month that while Ukraine is ready for peace talks, it will not withdraw its troops from the additional territory first, as demanded by Moscow.
(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Dmitry Antonov in Moscow)
