Earlier, a White House official had confirmed to Reuters that there were “no plans” for a Trump-Putin meeting “in the immediate future”. Key differences between the US and Russia’s proposal for peace in the region became increasingly clear this week, which apparently minimised the chances of a summit in Budapest.

“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting, I don’t want to have a waste of time — so we’ll see what happens,” Trump said in remarks at the White House on Tuesday. Trump and Putin earlier met in August during a summit in Alaska, which produced no concrete output to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump’s announcement to hold off a meeting with the Russian counterpart may come as a relief to European leaders, including the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz as they opposed any push for Ukraine to give up land captured by Russian forces in order to attain peace, which the US president had recently suggested.

The White House decision to shelve the plans for a second Trump-Putin summit could be as Washington might to avoid another similar scenario where the talks yield no result. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that “No precise timeframe was initially set here” and that “Preparation is needed, serious preparation.”

(with inputs from AP)