Just days after US President Donald Trump announced plans for a new peace summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, their proposed Budapest meeting has been thrown into doubt. Trump first shared news of the summit late last week following a lengthy and “very productive” telephone call with Putin. Speaking on Tuesday, however, White House officials said there were now “no plans” for the two leaders to meet in the “immediate future.”
This sudden change in tone came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedlyfailed to make any meaningful progress during a preliminary call ahead of planned talks in Budapest. Lavrov later confirmed that Putin had dismissed Trump’s ceasefire proposal and remained fully committed to achieving the maximalist goals of his invasion. “A ceasefire now would mean only one thing: A large part of Ukraine would remain under Nazi rule,” Russia’s top diplomat stated.
Lavrov’s latest comments serve as a timely reminder that Moscow’s objectives in Ukraine go far beyond limited territorial concessions and extend to regime change in Kyiv. His insistence on branding the Ukrainian government as “Nazis” is nothing new, of course, but it does underline Russia’s rejection of peaceful coexistence with an independent Ukraine, while also highlighting the scale of the current disconnect between Moscow and Washington. While Trump attempts to broker a geopolitical real estate deal, Putin is seeking to secure his place in history by extinguishing Ukrainian statehood and reviving the Russian Empire.
Voice of Ukraine 