President Trump has canceled the proposed summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin after Russia made clear it has no intention of backing off its demands. This represents the collapse of yet another White House effort to end a war that neither side can afford to quit.
Thursday, President Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
BACKGROUND:
President Trump Meets Ukraine's President Zelensky - Topic, Russia – RedState
Prior to that meeting, President Trump had hinted that he was open to transferring Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles to Ukraine and showed some movement away from his inexplicable pro-Russian stance on the negotiations. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth attended the Ramstein Group meeting in person for only the second time since he was confirmed and warned Russia, "If there is no path to peace in the short term, then the United States, along with our allies, will take steps necessary to impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression."
The meeting turned out to be a replay of the February 28, 2025, meeting in which Zelensky was berated and sent packing without lunch or a photo-op; see BREAKING: ‘I Want Peace, Not Endless War’: Trump Slams Door on More Talks With Zelensky – RedState. From the Financial Times:
Donald Trump urged Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept Russia’s terms for ending its war in a volatile White House meeting on Friday, warning that Vladimir Putin had said he would “destroy” Ukraine if it did not agree.
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian presidents descended many times into a “shouting match”, with Trump “cursing all the time”, people familiar with the matter said.
They added that the US president tossed aside maps of the front line in Ukraine, insisted Zelenskyy surrender the entire Donbas region to Putin, and repeatedly echoed talking points the Russian leader had made in their call a day earlier.
We know from other reports that Trump's primary Ukraine negotiator, Steve Witkoff, has adopted Putin's position that it must give up land it currently occupies in Donetsk as a prerequisite for any ceasefire; see Trump's Top Negotiator to Ukraine: Give Up the Donetsk Region – RedState. Previously, the U.S. position had been to freeze the current line of contact.
In Friday's phone call with Trump, Putin clarified that his maximalist demands were the starting point for any negotiation.
Trump's frustration was evident in his Friday message on X:
.@POTUS: "Stop at the battle line and both sides should go home, go to their families, stop the killing, and that should be it. Stop right now at the battle line. I told that to President Zelensky. I told it to President Putin." pic.twitter.com/hjjXIx6egj
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 17, 2025
I met with President Zelensky, as you know, today, and we had a very good meeting, very cordial meeting. In my opinion, they should stop the war immediately. You go by the battle line, wherever it is, otherwise it's too complicated, you'll never be able to figure it out. You stop at the battle line, and both sides should go home. Go to their families, stop the killing, and that should be it. Stop right now at the battle line. I told that to President Zelensky, I told it to President Putin. Thank you very much, everybody.
See Trump on Russo/Ukraine War: Stop at the Battle Line, Both Sides Go Home – RedState for more details.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Ukrainians want to go home; the problem is that the Russians have occupied their homes and won't leave.
We were left with a process that would see high-level staff from the U.S. and Russia meet; that would be followed by a meeting between Trump and Putin on the turf of Putin's EU ally, Hungary's Viktor Orban.
The cancellation of the Budapest meeting was prompted by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov throwing shade on what the White House considered negotiable items.
Lavrov said Trump’s demand for “an immediate ceasefire, which has suddenly become a topic of discussion again,” was contrary to what was agreed at the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska in August, when Trump abandoned his pressure on Putin to end the fighting ahead of negotiations.
“You see, if we just stop, it means forgetting the root causes of this conflict, which the American administration clearly understood,” Lavrov said. “I am referring to ensuring Ukraine’s nonaligned, nonnuclear status, which implies refraining from any attempts to draw it into NATO.”
He added that freezing the fighting now “would mean only one thing: a large part of Ukraine would remain under Nazi rule,” suggesting Russia’s continuing desire for regime change in Kyiv.
He also reiterated long-running Russian demands
Lavrov insisted Tuesday that any peace deal be based on what the Kremlin calls “the roots of the problem,” vague shorthand it uses to refer to Moscow’s demands that Ukraine surrender more territory, permanently disavow joining NATO, accept tight restrictions on the size of its military and get no future Western military assistance.
Russia has also demanded a veto over Ukrainian security guarantees. It does want its own security guarantees, even though it is the aggressor in the war.
To underscore the matter, Russia's most popular talk show host openly mocked Trump's negotiating style and method. Keep in mind, this mockery did not take place without the express consent of the Kremlin.
Solovyov openly mocks Trump for being Putin's puppet. America has become the laughingstock of the world but the worst part is that the American president bows to Putin while Putin disrespects him.
— PaulC (@PaulConRO) October 20, 2025
It's the beginning of the end for America's supremacy, as nobody trusts it. pic.twitter.com/ebeswmFsqW
When it became clear that the perceived common ground between the U.S. and Russian positions did not exist, the White House issued a statement pulling the plug on the planned Rubio-Lavrov meeting and the Trump-Putin summit.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “had a productive call,” said a White House official, who was not authorized to speak to the media. “Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the secretary and foreign minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future.”
This is what I pointed out at the time of the meeting with Zelensky in Putin Is Using Muhammad Ali's Tactics When Dealing With Trump's Ukraine Peace Efforts – RedState.
I submit that Putin is simply pulling another round of rope-a-dope on President Trump. He knows Trump has his ego invested in ending the war, but Putin has his very life invested in bringing home a win. You'll note that Putin has never wavered one iota from his insistence that the Ukrainian military be disarmed, the Zelensky government removed, that Russia be given a voice in Ukraine's foreign and domestic policy, that Ukrainian nationalism be suppressed, that five Ukrainian provinces, which are still contested, be handed over to Russia, and that the international coimmunity recognize the annexation of those five provinces. By giving Trump a meeting and seeming to be amenable to peace, Putin is lazing back on the ropes, dodging and weaving, and waiting for Trump to run out of interest or time.
Wars don't end through negotiation. They only end when one side loses or both sides decide the cost of persisting exceeds the prize. We haven't reached that stage in the Russia-Ukraine War because the Ukrainian people, by a super majority, don't want to give up land to Russia and because Putin can't turn away from this war without a political victory. Trump is now dealing in an environment that is not Manhattan real estate. No one wants a win-win; the currency is not money, it is power; and your opposite number really wants to break you because they get power by humiliating you.
I also fear that Trump is borrowing a page from the Joe-Biden-Antony-Blinken-Jake-Sullivan playbook and thinks that by offering Putin an "off ramp" instead of forcing Putin to the negotiating table by dragging his minuscule Russian pee-pee through the dirt, he can wean Russia away from being a Chinese satellite and bring it into Western Europe. That would make a great Hallmark movie, but it isn't going to work in real life.
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