Wednesday 22 / October / 2025
There are no plans for US President Donald Trump to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the "immediate future," a White House official said.
The official said the news came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a "productive" phone call.
"Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call. Therefore, an additional-in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary," the official told Axios and numerous other US outlets.
The official asked not to be identified given the weight of the matter.
Trump-Putin meeting called off for now
The phone call between Rubio and Lavrov was meant to be a forerunner to the potential Trump-Putin summit in Budapest, Hungary.
Trump told reporters he expected to meet Putin "within two weeks or so" after the two leaders spoke on the phone last week.
The next day after his phone call with Putin, Trump sat down with visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House.
The US president held off on signing off the transfer of long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.
European leaders voice support for Trump plan
European leaders earlier in the day issued a joint statementsaying they were "united" in their strong desire for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.
The leaders said they "strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately," suggesting that the current lines of control after four years of war could serve as a starting point for negotiations, but they warned that "international borders must not be changed by force."
Russia earlier in the day said it had "no idea" when a Trump-Putin meeting would take place.
In August, Trump and Putin met in Alaska for a hastily arranged summit that failed to bring about concrete progress toward ending the war.
