Russia was satisfied with the talks between Trump and Putin. Now Moscow is anxious

Russia scrambled Wednesday to salvage the prospect of in-person talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after they were unceremoniously suspended.

Trump said on Tuesday that he did not want to “have a wasted meeting” with Putin, which was to take place in Hungary in the coming weeks, as it became clear that Russia opposes the idea of ​​an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine.

“I don’t want to waste time, so we’ll see what happens,” Trump said after a call on Monday between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

After the call, Russia’s top diplomat told reporters in Moscow that he had told Rubio that “Russia has not changed its position” since Trump and Putin met in Alaska in August, and that while Moscow wanted a “durable and sustainable peace,” it was not interested in an “immediate ceasefire that will lead to nothing.”

After those comments, and with Trump apparently pouring cold water on the idea of ​​meeting Putin again, the Kremlin appeared to go into damage limitation mode, insisting Wednesday that the dates for the Budapest summit were “not set” but that preparations were still underway.

“This is yet to be done. Careful preparation is needed before that. Time is needed for that,” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, told reporters in comments translated by NBC News.

“There is no news yet; it is clear that all this is surrounded by a lot of gossip, rumors, etc., most of which are completely false. There is no news yet,” he added.

The suspension of talks with Russia appears to be another U-turn by the US administration, which has wavered this year on its position on Russia, the Ukraine war and its causes, and its possible resolution.

In Moscow there was more than a whiff of presumption and unconcern about misfortune, and Russian state medialast week, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s in-person talks with Trump last Friday appeared to go awry.

Especially after Russia effectively undermined the talks by getting in there first, earning Trump’s attention with a “very productive” – ​​as Trump described it – phone call he had with Putin. It was during that call that the leaders agreed to meet in person in a couple of weeks.

Trump and his team appeared to waver in their support for Ukraine after that call, and Zelenskyy left the White House the next day empty-handed, without long-range Tomahawk missiles, as had been requested, and with concerns that he might be pressured to abandon occupied territory in eastern Ukraine.

Those fears grew when Trump last weekend called for the partially Russian-occupied Donbas region, the epicenter of ongoing fighting in the three-and-a-half-year war, to be “cut off as is.”

“It’s divided right now, I think Russia has already taken 78% of the territory,” the president said on Air Force One on Sunday. “They should stop right now on the battle lines… Go back home, stop killing people and be done with it.”

Ukraine and a group of European allies rejected Trump’s position and warned in a joint statement on Tuesday that Russia was using “delaying tactics” to prolong the war. However, fearful of alienating Trump, they were careful to praise his efforts to bring both sides to the negotiating table.

“We strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting must cease immediately and that the current line of contact must be the starting point for negotiations. We remain committed to the principle that international borders should not be changed by force,” the European leaders said.

Now that the tables have turned again, Moscow appears to be feeling anxious, and the Kremlin insists it is serious about ending the war.

“No one wants to waste time. Neither President Trump nor President Putin. They are two presidents who are used to working effectively and efficiently, but effectiveness always requires preparation,” Peskov said Wednesday.

Several Russian officials in Putin’s inner circle accused the media of spreading “fake news” about the “cancellation” of the Hungary summit in an attempt to undermine it.

“The media is distorting talk about the ‘immediate future’ to undermine the upcoming Summit. Preparations continue,” said Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy and executive director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. commented on the social network.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova also made a similar argument, telling Radio Sputnik on Wednesday that an “information circus” surrounded the Trump-Putin summit.

“This whole information circus, which, by the way, is not over yet, is still going on: false leaks, self-corrections, confirmations, denials, they exist to once again provide informational support to Zelenskyy,” he said, in comments translated by NBC News.