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There are "no plans" for American leader President Trump to confer with Russia's Putin "anytime soon", a White House official has stated.

Last Thursday the US president stated he and the Russian president would hold talks in Hungary's capital in the coming fortnight to discuss the war in Ukraine.

A preparatory meeting between America's top diplomat Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov was due to be held recently - but the administration clarified the two had had a "productive" call and that a meeting was no longer "necessary".

The administration withheld any more details on the reason the negotiations had been put on hold.

Background Context

Trump had raised the possibility of a Budapest summit via telephone with Putin, a just prior to meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.

Certain accounts indicated his talks with Zelensky had been a "shouting match", with those familiar suggesting Trump had pushed him to relinquish large areas of Ukraine's east as part of a deal with Moscow.

Nevertheless, on this week the American president supported a peace initiative backed by Kyiv and EU officials to freeze the conflict on the present positions.

"Freeze the lines the way it is," he remarked.

Russia has frequently resisted against halting the present battle positions.

Moscow was solely focused on "enduring stability", Lavrov commented on this week, suggesting that halting hostilities would only amount to a short-term truce.

Political Perspectives

The "underlying reasons" of the war demanded attention, Lavrov stated, using Russian diplomatic language for a series of comprehensive conditions that involve the acknowledgment of complete Moscow control over the Donbas as well as the disarmament of Ukraine – a non-starter for Ukraine and its EU supporters.

Zelensky said discussions about the battle positions were the "commencement of dialogue" but that Moscow was "doing everything" to prevent dialogue.

He also said the only topic that could make Moscow "take notice" was that of the supply of distance-capable munitions to the Ukrainian military.

Weapons Discussions

The Russian president's unscheduled call with Trump last Thursday occurred before speculation that the United States was preparing to send extended-range cruise missiles to Ukraine that could theoretically target inside Russia.

Zelensky said it was the weapons consideration that had pressured the Kremlin to enter into dialogue. The talk about the missiles had emerged as a "valuable contribution" in diplomacy", he commented.