Russia was smug about Trump-Putin talks. Now, Moscow’s anxious

Russia scrambled on Wednesday to salvage the prospect of in-person talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin after they were unceremoniously put on hold.

Trump said on Tuesday that he didn’t want “to have a wasted meeting” with Putin, which was set to take place in Hungary in the next few weeks, as it became clear that Russia opposes the idea of an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine.

“I don’t want to have a waste of time — so we’ll see what happens,” Trump said following a call on Monday between U.S. 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 “lasting and sustainable peace,” it was not interested in an “immediate ceasefire that will lead to nothing.”

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

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

“There’s no news yet; it’s clear that all of this is surrounded by a lot of gossip, rumors, and so on. For the most part, they are completely untrue. There’s no news yet,” he added.

The suspension of talks with Russia appears to be yet another U-turn from the U.S. administration, which has seesawed this year over its position on Russia, the Ukraine war and its causes, and its potential resolution.

There was more than a whiff of smugness and schadenfreude in Moscow, and Russian state media, last week when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s own in-person talks with Trump last Friday appeared to go badly.

Particularly after Russia had effectively undermined the talks by getting in there first, gaining Trump’s ear with a “very productive” phone call — as Trump described it — that was held with Putin. It was during that call when the leaders agreed to meet in person within a couple of weeks.

Trump and his team appeared to vacillate on their support for Ukraine after that call, with Zelenskyy leaving the White House the next day empty handed, with no long-range Tomahawk missiles, as requested, and concerns that it could be pressured to give up occupied territory in eastern Ukraine.

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

“It’s cut up right now, I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia,” the president said on Air Force One on Sunday. “They should stop right now at the battle lines. … Go home, stop killing people and be done.”

Ukraine and a group of European allies pushed back against Trump’s position, warning in a joint statement Tuesday that Russia was using “stalling tactics” to prolong the war. Wary of alienating Trump, however, 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 should stop immediately, and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations. We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force,” European leaders noted.

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

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

Various Russian officials in Putin’s inner-circle accused media outlets of spreading “fake news” about the “cancellation” of the Hungary summit in a bid to undermine it.

“Media is twisting comment about the ‘immediate future’ to undercut the upcoming Summit. Preparations continue,” Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy and CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, commented on the X social network.

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova also presented 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, they haven’t finished yet, it’s still going on: Fake leaks, self-corrections, confirmations, denials, exist to once again provide informational support to Zelenskyy,” she said, in comments translated by NBC News.