In a reversal, Trump will not meet with Putin in coming weeks

By Zolan Kanno Youngs

WASHINGTON – The White House reversed itself on Tuesday (21) and said that President Donald Trump no longer planned to meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in “the immediate future”, after Russian officials made clear they had no intention of making a deal to end the war in Ukraine.

The announcement punctured the rosy picture that Trump had presented just five days ago, after he spoke on the telephone with Putin and came away with a plan for a “pretty quick”, in-person meeting in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss ending the war.

“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting,” Trump said Tuesday when asked why the meeting was put off. “I don’t want to have a wasted time, so I’ll see what happens.”

The back-and-forth is the latest example of the cycle between the two leaders, in which Trump teases some kind of diplomatic breakthrough, only to be pulled back by Putin. Trump has, by turns, courted the Russian leader and threatened him — but has never taken action to punish Russia in a meaningful way.

In the process, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine seems to lose any traction that he has built up with the United States.

“The question is, will Trump, and when will Trump, understand that to get the results he wants, he has to put pressure on Putin?” said Daniel Fried, a former US ambassador to Poland and longtime senior US diplomat. “Putin keeps playing him.”

After Trump spoke to Putin last week, he also backed off the possibility of selling long-range missiles to Ukraine that would allow Kyiv to strike deep into Russia, dashing Ukraine’s hopes of gaining the kind of leverage that would force Russia to negotiate.

The next day, Trump held a contentious meeting at the White House with Zelenskyy, who later told Europeans that Trump unsuccessfully pressed him to hand over territory to end the war — a development that would be on Russia’s terms.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s allies in Europe released a joint statement rejecting the prospect of territorial concessions.

“Russia’s stalling tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace,” the statement said. “We can all see that Putin continues to choose violence and destruction.”

At a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said he told Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a phone call that Russia’s position on the war had not changed: that a peace deal must come before a ceasefire.

That strategy allows Putin to continue the war indefinitely, pending negotiations for a more concrete deal that could take years to reach.

“It is now being said from Washington that there is a need to stop immediately, that there is no need to discuss anything further, and that ‘history should judge,’” Lavrov said. “If we just stop, it means forgetting the root causes of this conflict, which the American administration clearly understood and voiced this understanding upon Trump’s assumption of power.”

After the call between Lavrov and Rubio, Trump’s aides believed an in-person meeting between the senior officials would not be necessary, according to two White House officials. While Trump’s aides left open the possibility of a meeting with Putin down the line, one White House official said there was no date on the books.

Some foreign policy experts expressed hope that Trump still had leverage in the talks with Moscow. The president could still hang over the Russians the threat of providing Ukraine with the long-range missiles, known as Tomahawks.

“He still has it, and Putin knows it,” said William B. Taylor, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, said of that leverage.

But Taylor also acknowledged that Putin had prevented such a move from happening.

“Putin was worried about Tomahawks, asked for the phone call and at least delayed the Tomahawks,” Taylor said.

It was not the first time Trump announced a summit before cementing the details.

Trump invited the Russian president to a meeting in Alaska over the summer, flipping the traditional diplomatic process on its head. Rather than have his senior officials work out the complex details of diplomacy, then announce a summit, Trump hosted a splashy meeting — only to leave without a deal.

This time, the number of disputes appeared to be too great, including whether there was ever a commitment for a meeting.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said last week that Putin had committed to sitting down with Trump. But Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, said Tuesday that the summit with Trump and Putin could not have been postponed because it was never really “finalized”.

Despite the breakdown, Trump said he still saw a chance for a ceasefire in Ukraine. “I came in and I have to see if I can put it out,” he said of Russia’s war.

The president also said he expected to have another update on his approach to Russia and Ukraine in “the next two days.” Trump will often tease an announcement in “two weeks” or a couple of days, only to extend his deadline again and again.

-New York Times