Budapest awaits Trump and Putin
Budapest, the capital of Hungary, will be the centre of attention in a couple of weeks when Donald Trump, President of the United States, and Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, meet there at a summit agreed by both leaders in a recent telephone conversation held mainly to discuss the war in Ukraine.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone in the last few hours in a dialogue that was described as very productive and lasted more than two hours, a fairly long period of time that gives an idea of the key points that could have been touched upon during the dialogue between the two world leaders. The conversation resulted in an agreement to hold a personal meeting in Budapest to finalise more firm agreements after the meeting scheduled for Friday between Trump himself and Volodymyr Zelenski, the Ukrainian president, in Washington. Thus, after the dialogue with his Russian counterpart, Donald Trump assured that ‘great progress has been made’.
‘I will probably meet with him (Putin) in the next two weeks,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. For its part, the Kremlin confirmed the ‘almost two-and-a-half-hour’ telephone conversation and the organisation of a summit between the two leaders. ‘It was a very substantive conversation and, at the same time, extremely frank and full of trust,’ said the Russian administration, before indicating that the call was an initiative of Russia.
Trump also anticipated a meeting of ‘high-level’ advisers. Thus, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to finalise the details of the summit, as confirmed by the US president himself, who explained that the meeting between President Putin and himself will then take place ‘in an already agreed location, Budapest, Hungary’, to see if it is possible to ‘put an end to this inglorious war between Russia and Ukraine’.
Donald Trump's goal is clear: to stop the war in Ukraine and score another point in favour of his political and diplomatic image, just after having brokered a ceasefire in the Gaza war with a difficult agreement between Israel and the Palestinian extremist group Hamas after more than two years of bloody clashes that have already left tens of thousands of victims and total destruction in the Gaza Strip.
The host in Budapest will be Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, who is closely linked to the ideological and political currents of both Trump and, above all, Vladimir Putin. In fact, the Hungarian leader is the Russian president's main ally in a Europe that has come into direct conflict with the Kremlin over the unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine. Hungary is therefore friendly territory for Vladimir Putin, who is under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes, as the Hungarian state has announced its withdrawal from the ICC, which will take effect in June 2026.
In principle, there is no fixed date for the meeting between Trump and Putin, but there is speculation that it will take place in a couple of weeks and there is great anticipation as to whether there will finally be an agreement to stop the war in Ukraine. Donald Trump's goal after assuming the US presidency for the second time was to end the world's major armed conflicts, such as those in Gaza and Ukraine, and, having initially succeeded in the Gaza issue after many mediation efforts, it is now the turn of the conflict in Ukrainian territory.
Shortly after taking office again in January 2025, there was speculation that Donald Trump would reach a quick agreement to end the war in Ukraine, given the good relationship he had with Vladimir Putin during his first term as head of the American giant. But nothing could be further from the truth. Putin did not accept Donald Trump's offers and pressure and remained firm in his invasion of Ukrainian territory, which began in February 2022 and is still ongoing under the pretext of recovering Ukrainian territories considered by Putin's regime to historically belong to Russia. In addition, personal contacts between Trump and Zelensky in the past also showed signs of significant disagreements, although the differences have been smoothed over in recent months.
🚨 "President Zelenskyy and I will be meeting tomorrow, in the Oval Office, where we will discuss my conversation with President Putin, and much more. I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation." - President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/zPoiv9qcyo
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 16, 2025
The last meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin took place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, last August, but no agreement was reached on a resolution to the armed conflict in Ukraine.
Now, after more than two hours of conversation between Trump and Putin, the foundations may have been laid for an agreement to be signed in Budapest that will bring the opposing sides closer together, taking into account the other side of the equation, which is Volodymyr Zelensky's Ukraine.
Zelensky and the request for Tomahawk missiles
Friday was marked by the announcement of the meeting in Budapest between Trump and Putin and by the personal meeting between the US president and Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington.
The Ukrainian leader is requesting the supply of American Tomahawk missiles to counter the Russian war machine, which is mercilessly battering its Ukrainian neighbour with heavy blows such as the recent attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which are causing significant power cuts across the country.
The war in Ukraine has now been going on for three and a half years, and the destruction, both personal and material, is already too terrible and unbearable.
