Citing a lack of success in diplomatic efforts, US President Donald Trump said that he had canceled his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We cancelled the meeting with President Putin,” Trump said to reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
“It just didn’t feel right to me.”
“We didn’t seem to have a chance of reaching our destination. So I called it off, but we’ll do it later,” Trump continued.
After speaking with Putin over the phone last week, he announced that he would meet with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, for negotiations.
He told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, however, that the meeting would be “a waste of time.”
Trump was also angry about the negotiations’ deadlock.
“To be really honest, all I can say is that whenever I talk to Vladimir, we have fruitful discussions that end there. “They simply don’t move,” he remarked.
As part of a larger attempt to put pressure on Moscow over its ongoing military actions in Ukraine, the White House announced fresh sanctions aimed at Russian oil exports at the same time the meeting was canceled.
Trump expressed his hope that the sanctions will only last temporarily.
In his most recent attempt to put a stop to the conflict in Ukraine, Trump has targeted Russia’s two biggest oil corporations with new sanctions for the first time in his second term.
The US Treasury Department warned that a future action could not be ruled out and targeted Russian corporations Rosneft and Lukoil along with their subsidiaries.
Trump expressed his hope that the “war will be settled” at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House.
“These penalties are really severe. Compared to their two major oil firms, these are relatively significant. We also hope they won’t stay on for too long. We’re hoping the battle will end,” he continued.
Trump added that no progress had been made in his prior discussions with Russian President Putin.
“Every time I talk to Vladimir, we have fruitful discussions that end there. They simply don’t move. He is engaged in combat. He is engaged in combat. There are two highly skilled sides, and that is the nature of conflict. He emphasized, “I would say that it’s time to make a deal, but you never know with war.”
Following a phone conversation between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday, the meeting was canceled.
Trump said that “great progress” was made during his two-and-a-half-hour phone chat with the Russian president last week.
Trump called his meeting with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky “very interesting and cordial” and visited him at the White House the day following the chat.
“The meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was very interesting, and cordial, but I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL!,” the president of the United States wrote on Truth Social.
Additionally, Trump advocated for both leaders to “stop where they are” and “claim victory.”
Trump has turned his focus to the Russia-Ukraine war and increased efforts to put a stop to it after mediating a ceasefire in Gaza.
An agreement was not reached during Trump and Putin’s highly publicized August summit in Alaska.
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