By Guy Faulconbridge and Dmitry Antonov
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Wednesday that it was still preparing for a potential summit between President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, though no date had been set and that Putin – like Trump – did not want to waste his time.
Trump said last week following a phone call with Putin that he could meet him in Budapest soon as part of efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
But Trump said on Tuesday he did not want to hold a meeting that would be “waste of time”, and a senior White House official told Reuters that there were no plans for a Trump-Putin meeting “in the immediate future”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that dates for any summit “have yet to be determined, but before that, careful preparation is necessary – it takes time”.
‘NO ONE WANTS TO WASTE TIME’, KREMLIN SAYS
Asked about Trump’s remarks about not wanting to waste time, Peskov said: “No one wants to waste time, neither President Trump nor President Putin.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said nevertheless that preparations for a summit were continuing, and that he did not “see any major obstacles”. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the potential host, also said preparations for the summit were continuing.
Trump has long said he aims to end the war in Ukraine, Europe’s deadliest since World War Two. But since taking office he has yet to achieve a breakthrough, despite an overture to Russia which included a summit with Putin in Alaska in August.
Russia controls more than 116,000 square km (44,800 square miles), or more than 19% of Ukraine.
Ukraine and its European allies have called for an immediate ceasefire on current battle lines ahead of any peace talks, a position Trump backed publicly on Friday after meeting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Moscow has set conditions for a ceasefire and has called for Ukraine to cede more land.
RUSSIAN POSITION UNCHANGED
Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that Russia’s conditions for peace had not changed since the Putin-Trump summit in Anchorage.
“The elements of our position are well known to everyone,” the Kremlin’s Peskov said. “They are very clearly formulated by our president and everyone knows them well.”
On Monday, a meeting set for later this week between Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prepare for a Trump-Putin summit was postponed.
Reuters, citing unidentified sources, reported that Russia had reiterated its previous terms for reaching a peace deal with Ukraine in a private communique sent to the U.S. over the weekend, known as a “non-paper”.
Asked about the Reuters report, Ryabkov said he could not confirm it. He added that Western media published rumours based on unidentified sources that distorted the truth.
(Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Felix Light and Maxim RodionovEditing by Guy Faulconbridge and Peter Graff)
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