Ukraine: Trump cancelled Budapest meeting with Putin due to his “maximalist demands”
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After their August 15 summit in Alaska, US President Donald Trump had hoped that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will take steps to end the ongoing war in Ukraine. Nothing happened. The war continues.
Then Trump sought to negotiate a peace deal with Putin at another meeting, expected to be held this month in Budapest, Hungary. He put it off, calling it a “waste of time.”
It has now emerged that he did so because of Putin’s “maximalist demands”, a media report, quoting the Financial Times, suggested on Friday.
The Budapest meeting was announced early in October to discuss ways to end Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. However, ahead of the meeting, the Russian foreign ministry sent a memo reiterating its demands, which include territorial claims and a guarantee that Ukraine will not be included in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Putin labelled Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO as the “root cause” of his invasion of parts of Ukraine in February 2022.
According to the report, the memo was followed by a tense call between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during which they discussed the prospects of a meeting. Following the call, Rubio informed Trump that Moscow showed no willingness to negotiate.
Last week, Trump also said that his plan for a swift meeting with Putin had been put on hold because he did not want it to be a ‘waste of time.’ “I don’t want to have a wasted meeting. I don’t want to have a waste of time — so we’ll see what happens,” Trump said.
The two leaders last met in Alaska, but their meeting failed to revive Trump’s stalled efforts to end the war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides and wanton destruction in Ukraine, besides forcing millions of Ukrainians to become refugees in neighbouring countries.
Although peace efforts have been underway for some time, Moscow has accused Kyiv of delaying negotiations and failing to follow through on proposals to establish working groups to explore potential deal terms.
Similarly, Kyiv has reportedly claimed that Moscow is not negotiating in good faith and has been presenting demands that essentially amount to a call for surrender.
