Russia demands full control over Donbas as Budapest summit cancelled

In a communiqué it shared with the United States over the weekend, Russia reiterated its demand for total control over Ukraine’s Donbas region as a precondition for any future peace deal, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

A US official told Reuters that the so-called non-paper, an informal diplomatic communiqué in which one side lays out its position, also mentioned Russia’s insistence that NATO troops not be deployed on Ukrainian territory as part of any peace agreement.

Following a phone call with Vladimir Putin on Thursday, US President Donald Trump announced that the pair would meet in person in the Hungarian capital Budapest within two weeks.

The phone call, held on the eve of a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House, appears to have once again changed Trump’s attitude to the war in Ukraine, as he refused to green-light the transfer of vital long-range Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv, insisting instead on a quick end to hostilities.

By Tuesday, however, the Budapest summit appeared to be in jeopardy, withUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov concluding that it would not bring positive results after a phone call, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Lavrov told journalists that US officials had “concluded that Russia’s position has remained largely unchanged over time and remains within the bounds of its initial maximalist demands,” and said Moscow’s stance was the same as when Trump and Putin met in Alaska, the WSJ continued.

However, Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev said on Wednesday that both parties were still preparing for negotiations, despite media reports to the contrary, while Trump said that the US was yet to make a final decision on the Budapest meeting.