Donald Trump no longer plans to meet Vladimir Putin in Hungary, the White House confirmed.
The US president will not meet the Russian leader in the “immediate future” after a phone call between negotiators to prepare for peace talks turned sour.
On Thursday, Mr Trump announced he would hold a second summit with Putin in Budapest after a two-hour phone call with the Russian yielded “great progress”.
However, preparations for a summit between the two leaders stalled when Moscow cancelled an in-person preparatory meeting between Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state.
Mr Trump wanted officials from each side to convene in Hungary to prepare for his summit with Putin.
Mr Lavrov and Mr Rubio spoke by phone on Monday. According to reports, the call did not go well.
Mr Lavrov is believed to have told Mr Rubio that Russia would not accept freezing the frontline in Ukraine in the tense phone call.
A phone call between Marco Rubio (left) and Sergei Lavrov reportedly did not go well – FAZRY ISMAIL/EPA/Shutterstock
However, on Tuesday the White House described the call as “productive”, adding: “Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the secretary and foreign minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future.”
Mr Lavrov refused to compromise on Moscow’s maximalist position in discussions with Mr Rubio.
“I want to officially confirm: Russia has not changed its position compared to the understandings that were reached during the Alaska summit,” Mr Lavrov told reporters in Moscow after reports of his call with his American counterpart.
On the scrapped talks between Mr Trump and Putin, a Western official told The Telegraph: “I see it as a positive development. Russia has been clear their position has not changed so why the meeting?”
Ukraine has long accepted it would have to cede territory already occupied by Moscow as the price for peace.
But Russia has been pushing for further concessions, including the complete surrender of Donetsk, which Mr Trump said was only 78 per cent occupied by Russian forces.
During a two-hour phone call on Thursday, Putin told Mr Trump that he would relinquish claims over unoccupied parts of the Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in exchange for a complete Ukrainian surrender of the Donbas.
Steve Witkoff, the US president’s peace envoy, who has regularly met with Putin, told Volodymyr Zelensky that Russia had a constitutional claim to these lands.
Steve Witkoff (centre) speaks in southern Israel on Tuesday. He has regularly met with Vladimir Putin – Nathan Howard/REUTERS
The Ukrainian president publicly rebutted this notion because Putin had written the regions into Russia’s constitution following sham referendums after the launch of the full-scale invasion.
On Tuesday, Mr Zelensky wrote on social media: “The front line can be the beginning of diplomacy. Meanwhile, Russia is once again doing everything to avoid diplomacy.”
And in a veiled dig at Mr Trump’s refusal to sell long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, Mr Zelensky added: “The more Ukrainian long-range capabilities there are, the greater Russia’s readiness to end the war. These weeks have confirmed this once again.
“The discussion about Tomahawks turned out to be a strong investment in diplomacy – we forced Russia to show that Tomahawks are exactly the card they are paying attention to.”
Mr Trump ultimately rejected the request during their White House meeting on Friday after Putin had earlier told him deliveries of Tomahawks would damage US-Russia relations.
Mr Trump speaks with Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House – HANDOUT/AFP
Ukrainian and European sources were buoyed by the Russian refusal to negotiate amid fears Mr Zelensky would be pressured to cede territory to Moscow as the price for peace.
In a statement published on Tuesday, Mr Zelensky and his supporters in the Coalition of the Willing argued any future peace talks with Putin must be held on the basis that “the current line of contact should be the starting point”.
“We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force,” they added.
The Coalition of the Willing, chaired by Britain and France, seized on the heated call between Mr Rubio and Mr Lavrov, accusing Russia of “stalling tactics”.
Sir Keir Starmer has convened a meeting of its 30 members in London on Friday, which Mr Zelensky will attend in person.
The Coalition of the Willing, a group of allied European nations, said: “We can all see that Putin continues to choose violence and destruction.”
Ukraine peace plan
Ukraine and its European allies will discuss a 12-point peace plan, The Telegraph understands.
Sources said the proposal is modelled on Mr Trump’s peace deal for Gaza, which gave him renewed impetus to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Jonathan Powell, Britain’s National Security Adviser, has been credited with the idea of playing on the American’s ego.
The plan for Ukraine involves points such as the return of children kidnapped by Russia, a pathway to European Union membership and reconstruction of the war-ravaged country.
Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, will present the plan to Mr Trump on Wednesday.
The former Dutch prime minister has become the king of using flattery to keep the US president onside with both the Western military alliance and Ukraine.
Since meeting the US president in Alaska, Putin has demanded that Ukraine withdraws from its eastern Donbas regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, as a precondition for peace.
Mr Trump reportedly pressured Mr Zelensky to accept this proposal in a bruising encounter in the White House on Friday.
However, the surrender of Donetsk, which Moscow has failed to fully occupy since 2014, remains a red line for the Ukrainian president, who has said he would only negotiate on the basis of the current front lines.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Trump appeared to row behind the Ukrainian position, insisting he wanted to see the fighting “stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines”.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin pointed out that no clear date had been set for Putin’s meeting with Mr Trump.
“Listen, we have an understanding of the presidents, but we cannot postpone what has not been finalised,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said. “Neither President Trump nor President Putin gave exact dates.”
