Trump Plans Face-to-Face with Putin: A Strategic Talk on Ukraine After Promising Call

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United States President Donald Trump has said he’d meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Budapest after making “great progress” in a call, just a day before Ukraine’s leader is due at the White House to push for US-made Tomahawk missiles.

Trump did not give a date for the meeting in the Hungarian capital, which would be his second with Putin since returning to office. The pair met in Alaska in August without a breakthrough on ending the Russia-Ukraine war.

“Today’s phone call marked significant progress,” Trump shared on his Truth Social platform.

Trump said he and Putin would “meet in an agreed-upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ war, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end”.

According to Trump, high-ranking US and Russian representatives, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are set to engage in “initial discussions” next week, although the venue remains undecided.

Trump’s comments represented the latest swing in his relations with Putin, after he recently expressed growing frustration with the Kremlin leader over his refusal to reach a peace deal.

Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, took to social media to confirm that arrangements for the meeting are underway, calling it “excellent news for peace-loving individuals worldwide.”

Ushakov mentioned that Trump suggested Budapest as the meeting location, a proposal that received immediate backing from Putin.

The Kremlin announced it would “immediately” start preparations for a summit between the Russian and US leaders.

“It has been agreed that representatives of the two countries will immediately start organising the summit which could be held, for instance, in Budapest,” Putin’s top aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists.

Ushakov said the Budapest location was proposed by Trump, which was “immediately” supported by Putin.

“It was a highly substantive conversation, and at the same time, it was extremely frank and trustful,” Ushakov states, saying the two-and-a-half-hour call was at Russia’s initiative.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to meet Trump at the White House on Friday to push him to increase pressure on Putin.

During the meeting, “the main topic of discussion is Tomahawks”, a senior Ukrainian official told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Trump is considering a request from Ukraine for US-made Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a range of around 1,600 kilometres and could strike deep into Russia.

Putin’s aide said the Russian president had “reiterated his point that the Tomahawks will not change the situation on the battlefield, but will significantly damage relations between our countries”.

Trump had warned at the weekend that he would likely raise the issue first with Putin, who has warned that the supply of Tomahawks would be a “whole new level of escalation”.

“I might talk to him, I might say, ‘Look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks.’ I may say that,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the Middle East.

“The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, a very offensive weapon, and honestly, Russia does not need that.”

Trump said the Ukrainians “want to go offensive” and that they would discuss their request for the cruise missiles.

‘Don’t have the cards’

Relations between Trump and Zelenskyy have meanwhile warmed since February, when they sparred during a now-infamous televised meeting at the White House in which the US leader told his Ukrainian counterpart: “You don’t have the cards.”

But it remains to be seen how Zelenskyy will react to Trump’s latest apparent rapprochement with Putin.

Tomahawks would be a major addition to Ukraine’s arsenal, consolidating Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities with a missile that can fly just above the ground at near supersonic speed to evade radar detection.

The US has used Tomahawks for more than 40 years and in some of the country’s most high-profile conflicts, from the 1991 Gulf War to this year’s US strikes on Iran’s nuclear program.

Senior Ukrainian officials visiting Washington this week met with representatives of US weapon manufacturers, including Raytheon, which produces Tomahawk missiles.

With the war now in its fourth year, Russia launched fresh attacks on energy facilities in eastern Ukraine, repeating the pattern of focusing on Ukraine’s power network that it has followed every winter.

Energy has been a core factor throughout the war, with Trump saying Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised him India would stop buying Russian oil.