Trump says he will meet Putin in Budapest to discuss end to Ukraine war

President Trump said Thursday he plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest for talks on ending the war in Ukraine, reviving a diplomatic effort after threatening to send new weapons to Kyiv.

“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” Trump wrote in a social media post, where he also suggested that last week’s breakthrough on a Gaza peace deal could create diplomatic momentum.

“I actually believe that the Success in the Middle East will help in our negotiation in attaining an end to the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote. The meeting with Putin in Budapest, the president said, would follow an initial round of meetings between Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Russian counterparts next week at a location to be determined.

The call with Putin, which press secretary Karoline Leavitt said lasted more than two hours, came ahead of Trump’s scheduled White House meeting Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has said he’s hoping to convince the U.S. to provide Tomahawk missiles and other weapons systems that would enable Ukraine to attack deeper into Russia.

Trump, who has been searching for new ways to pressure Putin, announced Wednesday that he’d received a promise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India would halt its purchasing of Russian oil, something he noted would take months if not years.

A bipartisan group of at least 10 lawmakers have signed onto a letter circulating Thursday that urges Trump to approve the Tomahawk cruise missiles for Ukraine, impose tougher sanctions on Russia and press Moscow to return thousands of abducted Ukrainian children.

The letter was led by the Republican and Democratic co-chairs of the House Ukraine Caucus, as well as Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) and Michael McCaul (R-Texas). They argue those steps would give Kyiv leverage in peace talks with Russia and reinforce Trump’s “peace through strength” strategy.

They also call for Trump to greenlight more Patriot air defense systems, F-16 upgrades and Advanced Precision Kill Weapons Systems, which turn standard rockets into guided munitions.

Whether this meeting, should it happen, results in a breakthrough that Trump and Putin’s previous meeting in Alaska did not yield, remains a question. But the fact that President Trump has explicitly described this meeting as one that will end the Russia-Ukraine war indicates that an offramp to the end of the war could be coming into view, in a way that it never was before.