Donald Trump, the first statement about the date of the meeting in Hungary with Vladimir Putin

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he expects to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin soon, possibly “within the next two weeks”, Reuters and AFP reported.

“I would say I'll be meeting with him in about two weeks, pretty quickly,” Trump told White House reporters in the Oval Office when asked about the date of the summit with Putin in Budapest.

He added that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio would first hold talks with Russian officials.

Previously, the American leader had announced that “great progress has been made” following the phone conversation he had with Vladimir Putin in the afternoon and that he would have a meeting with him in the capital of Hungary, on a date which, however, he did not mention in the initial online post.

“I have decided that a meeting of our top advisers will take place next week. The first meetings will be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with others to be named. The location is to be chosen. Then, President Putin and I will meet in an already agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can end this 'shameful' war between Russia and Ukraine,” he wrote President Trump, in the message published on his social network, Truth Social.

“President Zelensky and I will meet tomorrow in the Oval Office, where we will discuss my conversation with President Putin and much more. I believe that great progress was made following the telephone conversation today,” the White House leader also wrote, without giving details about the content of the discussion, which he described as “very productive.”

The Trump-Putin conversation was also described in a White House statement as “good and productive.” The White House announced, through spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, quoted by CNN, that the telephone conversation between the two heads of state lasted “more than two hours”. More details will be provided later, Leavitt said. “I just spoke with the president, the secretary of state and the vice president, and it was a very good and productive conversation. It lasted more than two hours,” she told reporters.

The Kremlin and Zelensky reacted

A Kremlin aide later said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would hold talks in the coming days to prepare for the new Trump-Putin summit.

The official of the Kremlin, Yuri Ushakov, specified that the date of the summit will depend on how the preparations will advance.

Ushakov made these statements during a press conference on the subject of the telephone conversation between Putin and Trump, the eighth this year, which, according to the Kremlin adviser, took place at the initiative of Moscow.

He also said that Trump proposed Budapest as the venue for the summit and that Putin immediately agreed.

Ushakov also stated that the two leaders also discussed the possible delivery of Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States to Ukraine, which President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been requesting intensively lately.

“Vladimir Putin reiterated his thesis that the Tomahawk missiles will not change the situation on the battlefield, but will cause significant damage to the relations between our countries, not to mention the damage to the prospects of a peaceful resolution” of the conflict, Ushakov also stated to reporters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Washington on Thursday, to be received by Trump at the White House on Friday.

“We have a meeting planned with President Trump tomorrow (Friday) and we are building on the momentum that has worked in the Middle East to stop terror and war to help end Russia's war against Ukraine,” Zelenskiy wrote in a message posted on the Telegram messaging app. “The language of force and justice will certainly work with Russia as well,” the Ukrainian leader added.

Zelenski did not directly refer to Trump's announcement regarding his new meeting in Budapest with Putin.

But the Ukrainian leader added that it was clear that “after hearing about the Tomahawk missiles, Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue,” in an apparent reference to signals sent to Trump that Washington is considering supplying Kiev with the long-range missiles.

Previously, Putin had warned the US that the transfer of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would irreparably damage Russian-American relations, and noted that these missiles, which Kiev requires to strike deep into Russian territory, cannot be operated by the Ukrainian military without American assistance.