Officials from Russia and the US have dashed expectations that the leaders of their respective countries, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, are slated to meet soon to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Tuesday’s announcement comes after President Trump announced he would meet with his Russian counterpart in Hungary “within two weeks or so”.
“There are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future,” a senior White House official told Al Jazeera.
Moscow also denied that a meeting was imminent, saying that preparations “could take time”.
“No precise timeframe was initially set here,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. “Preparation is needed, serious preparation.”
At an Oval Office news conference later in the day, Trump was asked what happened to delay the meeting. The US president declined to offer specifics, instead framing the postponement as a question of efficiency.
“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting,” said Trump. “I don’t want to have a waste of time, so I’ll see what happens.”
Hopes for a near-term summit had dimmed in recent days. Reports have suggested that the delay is the result of differing views on the conditions necessary for ending the conflict.
Over the weekend, Russia sent a private communique to the US demanding control of all of Ukraine’s Donbas region, according to officials who spoke to the news agency Reuters on condition of anonymity.
That demand conflicts with the desire Trump articulated on Sunday to see the battle lines frozen where they currently stand.
Then, on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, held a phone call ahead of a planned in-person preparatory meeting.
But the White House confirmed on Tuesday that meeting would also not take place.
“Secretary Rubio and Minister Lavrov had a productive call. Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary,” a White House official told Al Jazeera in a statement.
CNN cited a government source as saying that the US is concerned that Moscow is sticking to a “maximalist stance” regarding its conditions for a ceasefire.
Lavrov dismissed the report as “unscrupulous” but insisted that Moscow’s position has not changed since Trump and Putin held a summit in Alaska two months ago.
“Russia has not changed its position compared to the understandings that were reached during the Alaska summit,” Lavrov told reporters. He added that he had conveyed this directly to Rubio when the two spoke by phone.
Lavrov said that the location and timing of the next Trump-Putin summit — which Trump announced after a phone call with Putin on October 16 — mattered less than implementing what the two sides agreed to in Alaska.
At the August summit, Putin said his country is committed to ending the war but argued that the conflict’s “primary causes” must be eliminated for a ceasefire to be long-lasting.
Moscow’s list of “primary causes” has included demands for Ukraine to remain “neutral” and its military capabilities to be dismantled. It has also sought to retain occupied Ukrainian territory.
‘Putin continues to choose violence’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and numerous European leaders responded by accusing Moscow of dragging its feet in peace efforts while continuing to wage “violence and destruction” on its neighbour.
“Russia’s stalling tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace,” said a joint statement by Zelenskyy and eight European leaders. “We can all see that Putin continues to choose violence and destruction.”
The apparent summit delay poses another setback for Trump, who has promised to end the war quickly but failed to extract concrete concessions from Moscow.
After months of wavering messages, Trump has most recently called for freezing the current battle lines as a starting point for negotiations.
That position has been embraced by both Zelenskyy and European leaders.
However, Putin has rejected multiple calls for a ceasefire and stuck to a list of hardline demands, including major territorial concessions, that Kyiv sees as unacceptable.
Ukraine says a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is needed to make progress, but the Kremlin has ruled out talks with the Ukrainian leader until a peace deal is practically agreed.