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President Donald Trump is redoubling his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, announcing a second meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin one day before sitting down with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House.
Trump’s announcement came shortly after finishing a call with Putin on Thursday. A date has not been set, but Trump said the meeting would take place in Budapest, Hungary. He later told reporters that he envisions the meeting happening in two weeks or so, and that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will host.
“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” Trump wrote on social media. The two leaders previously met in Alaska in August, which did not produce a diplomatic breakthrough, a source of frustration for the U.S. leader who had expected that his longstanding relationship with Putin could pave the way to resolving a conflict that began nearly four years ago.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, said the Russian president initiated the call, which he described as “very frank and trusting.” He said Putin emphasized to Trump that selling long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, something the U.S. president has publicly discussed, would “inflict significant damage to the relations between our countries.”
Trump was already scheduled to meet Friday with Zelenskyy, who has been seeking weapons that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory. Zelenskyy has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations to end the war more seriously.
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Trump’s renewed focus on the war in Ukraine comes after forging a ceasefire that could end the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, a diplomatic accomplishment that he celebrated with a whirlwind trip to Israel and Egypt on Monday.
Ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza was central to Trump’s campaign pitch last year, when he persistently pilloried President Joe Biden for his handling of the conflicts.
Although there has been fragile progress in Gaza, Trump has been stymied by Putin, unable to persuade the Russian leader to hold direct talks with Zelenskyy.
Earlier this week in Jerusalem, in a speech to the Knesset, Trump predicted the truce in Gaza would lay the groundwork for the U.S. to help Israel and many of its Middle East neighbors normalize relations. Trump also made clear his top foreign policy priority now is ending the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.
