US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will meet again with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in an effort to end the war in Ukraine. A date has not been set, but Trump wrote on social media that the meeting would take place in Budapest, Hungary.
“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” Trump wrote after talking to Putin. They previously met in Alaska in August, which did not produce a diplomatic breakthrough.
Before Trump and Putin meet, US officials led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio will sit down with Russian representatives next week. It is unclear where that meeting will take place.
The call comes ahead of Trump’s meeting on Friday at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader has been pressing Trump to sell Kyiv Tomahawk missiles, which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Zelensky has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the war more seriously.
With a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage deal holding, Trump has said he’s now turning his attention to bringing Russia’s war on Ukraine to an end and is weighing providing Kyiv long-range weaponry as he looks to prod Moscow to the negotiating table.
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