Trump, Putin to meet: Will Ukraine get US weapons or not?
United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to hold another summit to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, after a high-stakes summit in Alaska in August failed to yield concrete results.
Following a two-hour call with Putin on Thursday – the first time the two leaders have spoken since Alaska – Trump said a meeting would take place within two weeks in Hungary’s capital, Budapest. The Kremlin has also confirmed the meeting.
Hungary has been chosen because it has declared that it is leaving the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 over the war in Ukraine. Most other European Union nations are members of the court and thus compelled to arrest Putin if he sets foot on their territories, meaning Budapest is now one of the few safe locations he can go to on the continent.
“I just got off the phone with President Donald Trump. Preparations for the USA-Russia peace summit are under way. Hungary is the island of PEACE!” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on X late Thursday.
The meeting will be Putin’s first visit to an EU nation since the war in Ukraine began in 2022.
News of a new summit comes as Trump voices frustration with Russia’s lack of cooperation in peace talks as the war edges closer to its fourth anniversary.
On Sunday, on his way to Israel following a ceasefire announcement with Hamas in Gaza, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he might tell Russia that, if “the war is not settled”, the US could send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. Tomahawk cruise missiles have a long range and would make strikes on Moscow and other key Russian cities possible.
“Do they [Russia] want Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so,” the US president said. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media that this statement had caused “extreme concern”.
But after his call with Putin on Thursday, Trump appeared to backpedal on this when he told reporters who asked about Ukraine’s request for the missiles: “We need Tomahawks for the United States, too. We can’t deplete for our country.”
Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are scheduled to meet at the White House in Washington on Friday, and the subject of military support for Kyiv is expected to be on the table.
Source: Aljazeera
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