Europe Asia News

This change in stance came after Trump said on Thursday, following a phone call, that the leaders could meet “in as little as two weeks, quite soon.” Now, however, such a timeline appears unlikely.

Trump said on Tuesday that he did not want the meeting to be “a waste of time.” He hinted that he could still meet with the Russian leader but stressed that it was no longer a priority. The president told reporters, “We’ll let you know in the next two days what we’re doing.”

After Thursday’s call, Trump said the U.S. and Russia had “agreed to hold a meeting next week with our senior advisers,” and officials expected Secretary of State Marco Rubio to meet his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov to lay the groundwork for a Trump–Putin summit.

However, multiple officials told CNN that diplomatic contacts have now, at least for the time being, ceased. One source said Rubio and Lavrov had differing expectations regarding a possible end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Rubio and Lavrov spoke by phone on Monday.

An American official said, “Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive conversation. Therefore, an additional face-to-face meeting is unnecessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet President Putin in the near future.”