Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump says he did not want ‘wasted’ meeting with Putin after talks cancelled
Donald Trump has said he did not want to have a “wasted” meeting with Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, as a proposed summit between the pair was called off.
The President said preparatory talks between senior US and Russian officials showed that the gap between the two countries was too large to begin negotiations over ending the conflict.
“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting,” Trump said. “I don’t want to have a waste of time — so we’ll see what happens.”
His comments followed a phone call between Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during which Lavrov stated that Moscow’s negotiating position remained unchanged since the Alaska summit which failed to yield progress.
A White House official told The Independent on Tuesday that there are no plans for a presidential summit in the “immediate future”.
European leaders have called on Trump to demand an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine based on present battle lines. But Putin has insisted that he wants Kyiv to hand over the entirety of the Donbas, and has previously rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire.
