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ReutersUS President Donald Trump said “great progress” had been made during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, with the two agreeing to hold face-to-face talks in Hungary.
He said the conversation, the first with Putin since mid-August, had been “very productive”, adding that teams from Washington and Moscow would meet next week.
Trump has not confirmed a date for his meeting with Putin in Budapest. The Kremlin said work on the meeting would begin “immediately” after an “extremely frank and confidential” conversation.
The talks came a day before Ukrainian President Zelensky visits the White House and Trump weighs whether to arm Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles capable of striking deep into Russia.
When he arrived in the US, Zelensky said Moscow was “rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it heard about the Tomahawks”.
Writing on his Truth Social platform after the call, Trump said he and Putin “spent a lot of time talking about trade between Russia and the United States when the war with Ukraine ended.”
He said “high-level advisers” from both countries would meet at an unspecified location next week, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio leading the US delegation.
Trump also said he would brief Zelensky on his talks with Putin on Friday, adding: “I believe a lot of progress was made with today’s phone call.”
He later told reporters he expected to meet Putin “within two weeks.”
Asked about the prospect of providing the missiles to Ukraine after his talk with Putin, Trump said “we can’t run out” of America’s stockpile of Tomahawks, adding that “we need them too … so I don’t know what we can do about that.”
Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Olga Stefanyshyn, said Russia’s overnight strikes against Ukraine “hours before” Putin’s talk with Trump “reveals Moscow’s true attitude to peace”.
In a statement to the BBC’s US partner CBS, she added: “These attacks show that Moscow’s strategy is one of terror and attrition. The only effective response is pressure – through tougher sanctions, enhanced air defenses and the provision of long-range capabilities.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told X the planned meeting in Budapest was “great news for peace-loving people around the world.”
Earlier he also said: “Peace requires patience, strength and humility. Europe must change its position. Instead of arrogance and fanning the flames of endless war, we need negotiations with Russia. Only dialogue can bring peace to our continent.”
Trump has taken a much tougher line with Putin on the war in Ukraine after a face-to-face summit in Alaska in August failed to produce a decisive breakthrough in efforts to reach a peace deal.
The two met on American soil on August 15 for a summit that the US president hoped would help persuade the Russian president to begin comprehensive peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
EPAThey spoke again days later when Trump broke off a meeting with Zelensky and European leaders to call Putin.
Since then, neither the White House nor the Kremlin has publicly confirmed any communications between the two.
During his presidential campaign, Trump claimed he would be able to end the war in Ukraine within days, but has since admitted that resolving the conflict is a bigger challenge than any he has been involved in since returning to power.
Trump was seen as more sympathetic to Russia than his predecessor Joe Biden, and strained relations with Zelensky reached a peak on February 28 when he and Vice President JD Vance berated the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office on live television.
But public relations with Zelensky have improved significantly in recent months.
In September, Trump signaled a major shift in his view of the conflict, saying he believed Kiev could “return all of Ukraine to its original form,” a departure from his public calls for Kiev to cede territory occupied by Russia.
During Zelensky’s upcoming visit to Washington on Friday, his third since January, the topic of Tomahawk missiles is likely to be high on the agenda.
Zelensky called on the US to provide Ukraine with the advanced missiles, which have a range of 2,500 km (1,500 miles).
Asked earlier this week if he was considering giving Ukraine the missiles, he said: “We’ll see… Maybe.”
In late July, Trump gave Putin a deadline of less than two weeks to agree to a ceasefire or face wide-ranging sanctions, including measures against countries that still trade with Russia.
But he did not follow through on the threat after Putin agreed to meet Trump in Alaska, which the US president hailed as a significant diplomatic success at the time, although it produced no tangible result.
Earlier on Thursday, India’s foreign ministry cast doubt on a claim made by Trump a day earlier that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to stop buying Russian oil.
An Indian government spokesman said he was “not aware of any conversation between the two leaders” held the previous day, after Trump said Modi had assured him the purchases would stop “within a short period of time.”
The US has been pushing countries – notably India, China and NATO members – to stop buying Russian energy in a bid to increase economic pressure on the Kremlin. Zelensky has also repeatedly repeated these calls.
