U.S. Cancels Planned Trump–Putin Budapest Summit Over Moscow’s Ukraine Demands

Overview

• The decision was reported by the Financial Times and relayed by Reuters and Ukrinform after a tense call between Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Marco Rubio that signaled no willingness to negotiate.
• Moscow had reiterated demands for Ukrainian territorial concessions, a drastic reduction of Ukraine’s armed forces, and a guarantee that Ukraine would never join NATO.
• Reuters said it could not immediately verify the Financial Times’ account, and the White House and Russian representatives declined to comment.
• The Budapest session, initially planned for this month after the leaders agreed in principle to meet, was first postponed when Russia maintained its preconditions.
• On October 22, President Trump said he had canceled the meeting after concluding it would not achieve acceptable outcomes.