Kremlin says timing of Trump-Putin summit is unclear

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By Guy Faulconbridge and Dmitry Antonov

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin said on Tuesday it was unclear when a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on seeking an end to the war in Ukraine would take place, and that no dates had been mentioned by anyone.

Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the Ukraine war, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two, though he has said that finding peace has been harder than reaching a ceasefire in Gaza or ending a conflict between India and Pakistan.

After speaking to Putin on October 16, Trump said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would meet this week ahead of a possible summit in Budapest within two weeks. Moscow gave no timings.

But CNN cited an unidentified White House official as saying the anticipated Rubio-Lavrov meeting had been put on hold for the time being. It cited one source as saying Rubio and Lavrov had divergent expectations about a possible end to the war.

Lavrov told reporters that he had agreed with Rubio to continue telephone contacts, while the Kremlin said it was impossible to postpone a summit for which a date had not been set in stone.

“Listen, we have an understanding of the presidents, but we cannot postpone what has not been finalised,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “Neither President Trump nor President Putin gave exact dates.”

“We need preparation, serious preparation,” Peskov said. “This may take time. That’s why, in fact, no exact dates were initially set here.”

Asked if Moscow had an understanding of a possible date for the summit, Peskov said: “No, there is no understanding.”

Putin, who ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in the country’s east between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops, has repeatedly said he is ready to talk about peace, and set out conditions for ending the war.

Trump and Putin met on August 15 at a Cold War-era air force base in the Alaskan city of Anchorage, in a bid to end the war, though some U.S. and Russian sources said there were significant disagreements between them at the meeting.

Trump has said he thinks peace can be achieved, though he has variously warned President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that he has “no cards” and cast Russia as a “paper tiger”, which he said had failed to subdue Ukraine despite its vast armed forces.

Rubio and Lavrov held a telephone call on Monday to discuss the next steps, according to Moscow and Washington.

(Additional reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan and Devika Nair in Bengaluru and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)