An upcoming summit in Budapest between President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has been canceled, following a Monday phone call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
A White House official who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity stated that Rubio and Lavrov “had a productive call” and that the proposed in-person meeting between the secretary and foreign minister was not necessary as a result.
The official also stated that Trump had no plans to meet with Putin after the two leaders spoke by phone for two hours Thursday. Lavrov had expressed reservations about the follow-up to August’s summit in Alaska after Poland threatened to execute the International Criminal Court’s active arrest warrant if Putin flew inside its airspace.
Lavrov said Tuesday that the Russians were committed to fighting despite Trump’s repeated attempts to bring the war to an end.
“If we just stop, it means forgetting the root causes of this conflict, which the American administration clearly understood,” Lavrov complained. “I am referring to ensuring Ukraine’s nonaligned, nonnuclear status, which implies refraining from any attempts to draw it into NATO.”
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