Brussels 22.10.2022 Commenting on a possible meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the U.S. President Donald Trump said that a final decision has not been made yet, emphasizing that he did not want to waste time. Trump made this statement at a Diwali celebration at the White House.
President Trump-
"I did not say that the meeting with Putin would be a waste of time. A lot is happening on that front. We will notify you within the next two days." pic.twitter.com/C9xj0nnlbd
— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) October 21, 2025
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“I don’t want to waste a meeting. I don’t want to waste time. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “We’ll see what happens. No decision has been made yet.”
When asked by reporters what had changed his mind since his last conversation with Putin and why he now believes the Budapest summit could be a waste of time, Trump replied: “I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say that would be the case.”
“You never know what’s going to happen,” Trump said, noting that a lot is happening in the conflict in Ukraine. “We’ll notify you in the next two days about our actions. A lot is happening in Ukraine.”
BREAKING 🚨 President Trump said BOTH Putin and Zelenskyy want to end the war now. HUGE 🔥
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) October 17, 2025
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
On October 21, Reuters, citing sources, reported that the Putin-Trump summit in Budapest was in jeopardy due to the postponement of a face-to-face meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. One of the sources suggested that Moscow had not changed its position on the ceasefire and was not going to stop at the current frontline.
Later that day, Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and special presidential envoy, said that preparations for a peace summit between the Russian and U.S. presidents were ongoing.
During the event, Trump also emphasized that there was still a chance for a ceasefire.
“I think Putin wants this to end, and I think [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy wants this to end, and I think it will end,” he said.
Trump reiterated that the conflict would not have occurred if he had been the U.S. president at the time. He said it was a “brutal conflict,” but it didn’t affect the United States because the country was selling equipment to NATO, which in turn was transferring it to Ukraine. He believed former US President Joe Biden would have spent $350 billion on these efforts.
“If I were president, [the conflict] would never have happened. And Putin knows it would never have happened, but it did,” he said. He also believes the conflict could have escalated into World War III.
Trump once again reminded about all the peace agreements he had managed to negotiate and resolve several conflicts. The president added that in the case of the Ukrainian conflict, he had proposed that the parties stop along the front lines, “then retreat, go home, and get some rest, because the two countries are killing each other.”
On October 20, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s position on freezing the conflict with Ukraine remains consistent.
On October 19, Trump told the press that he believed Russian and Ukrainian forces should cease hostilities while remaining at the current line of contact.
The Financial Times reported that on October 17, Trump called on Zelenskyy to accept Russia’s terms for ending the conflict, declaring that otherwise the Republic would be “destroyed.” According to the newspaper’s sources, the White House chief “cast aside maps of the front lines in Ukraine” and insisted that Zelenskyy “hand over the entire Donbas to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
EUROPE DIPLOMATIC 