Trump says he will meet Putin again after making ‘substantial progress’ in a phone call on Thursday
US President Donald Trump said Thursday he will meet again with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to end the war in Ukraine.
The date has not been set, but Trump wrote on social media that the meeting will take place in Budapest, Hungary.
“I believe a lot of progress was made with today’s phone conversation,” Trump wrote after calling Putin on Thursday.
They had previously met in Alaska in August, which did not produce much success.
Before Trump and Putin meet, US officials led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio will sit down with Russian representatives next week. It is not clear where that meeting will take place.
The call came ahead of Trump’s meeting Friday at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been pressing Trump to allow Ukrainian forces to push deeper into Russian territory.
Zelenskyy pointed out that such strikes will help force Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine to end the hostilities seriously.
Trump is shifting priorities from Gaza
Trump had told reporters traveling with him in Israel on Sunday that he planned to talk to Putin as a way to pressure him into ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Do they want to have Tomahawks go down that path? I don’t think so,” Trump said Sunday. “I think I might talk to Russia about that.”
With a weak Israel – Hamas Resefire and the management of the case is in charge, now Trump said that he is now paying attention to his war to bring the war in Ukraine to the end and is looking to provide weapons to Kyiv as long as he is looking at Moscow at the negotiating table.
“It’s interesting that we made progress today, because of what happened in the Middle East,” said Trump on the Russia-Ukraine war on Wednesday evening as he welcomed supporters of his White House Ballroom dinner.
Earlier this week in Jerusalem, in a speech to Khosset, Trump predicted that this stick in Gaza would lay the groundwork for the US to help Israel and many of its neighbors in the Middle East.
But Trump also made it clear that his top foreign policy is now ending Europe’s biggest armed conflict since the Second World War.
“The first thing we have to do is get Russia done,” Trump said, turning to Sevoy Envoy Steve Witkoff, who has served as a top executive in the Putin administration. “We have to find out that someone has been made. If you don’t mind, let’s focus on Russia first. Okay?”
Trump is weighing tomahawks on Ukraine
Trump is set to host Zelenskyy in Friday’s talks, their fourth face-to-face meeting this year. Ahead of the meeting, Trump said he was weighing selling the Kyivs the range of a walking tomahawk.
Putin made it clear that providing Ukraine with Tomahawks would cross a red line and also damage relations between Moscow and Washington. But Trump didn’t cut it.
“He liked to have Tomahawks,” Trump told Zelenskyy on Tuesday. “We have a lot of tomowawks.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that more than half of the Alliance members pledged their support for Ukraine, and that NATO and the European Union were working together to protect member countries from drone attacks.
Agreeing to sell Ukraine Tomahawks would be a real deal, said Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington. But it could take years to equip and train Kyiv for the Tomahawk program.
Montgomery said Ukraine could be better served in the near term with the deployment of the Extended Range Attack Atterition Munition (ERAM) Miction and the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS. The US has already approved the sale of up to 3,350 endams to Kyiv earlier this year.
The Tomahawk, at a range of about 1,600 kilometers, would allow Ukraine to drive deeper into Russian territory than the US (about 460 kilometers).
“Providing the Tomahawks is as much a political decision as it is a military one,” Montgomery said.
Signs of White House Fans in New Russian Helsetions
Zelenskyy is expected to give his appeal on hitting the Russian economy with more regulations, something the Republican president has, so far, already seemed to like.
Congress has a heavy weight that will lead to a strong resistance to Moscow, but Trump has focused more on pressuring NATO members and other allies to cut their purchase of Russia, the fuel engine of Moscow’s War Machine.
To that end, Trump said on Wednesday that India, which became one of Russia’s biggest buyers after the attack on Ukraine, agreed to stop buying oil from Moscow.
Awaiting Trump’s blessing is legislation in the Senate that would impose tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports, in an effort to cripple Moscow economically.
Although the President has not officially agreed – and Republican leaders do not plan to move forward without his support – the White House has shown, behind the scenes, more interest in recent weeks.
The administration has delved deeper into the law, offering to line up and asking for technical changes, according to two officials with knowledge of negotiations between the White House and the Senate.
That’s being interpreted on Capitol Hill as a sign that Trump is starting big on the legislation, sponsored by Velly Ally Republican Sen. Lindocy Graham from South Carolina, and Democratic Sen. Richard Blicutt.
Treasury Secretary Scott Scent said on Wednesday that the administration was waiting for big purchases from Europe, which marked a bigger face from Russian aggression than the US.
“So all I hear from the Europeans is that Putin is coming to Warsaw,” said Sessent. “There are very few things in life that I am sure of. I am sure that he is not trying in Boston. Therefore, we will respond … If our European partners will join.”
