Washington/Moscow – The struggle to end the war in Ukraine has reached a significant standstill. Last week, US President Donald Trump announced a new meeting in Budapest after a two-hour phone call with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. BUT: That doesn't seem likely to happen.

According to US sources, there are NO plans for an imminent meeting between US President Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. This is not planned"in the near future," says a senior official in the presidential office in Washington.

Previously, there was apparently also resistance from the Russian side. This was reported by the US news site Politico (like BILD, which is owned by Axel Springer).

Originally, a diplomatic warm-up session was planned before the presidents' planned handshake. Foreign Ministers Marco Rubio (54, USA) and Sergei Lavrov (75, Russia) were supposed to coordinate the goals of the planned Budapest meeting more precisely this time than at the disappointing, hastily prepared Alaska meeting in mid-August.

Not even this preparatory meeting has been agreed upon yet. When CNN reported that the Lavrov-Rubio talks had been postponed, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov (65) reacted smugly:"It's impossible to postpone something on which no agreement has been reached," the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

Trump had announced a meeting with Putin in “about two weeks”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (58) also emphasized to reporters: “Preparations are necessary – serious preparations.” This will take time, and he also did not want to give a fixed date.

After the Putin phone call, Trump himself announced a meeting in Budapest in"about two weeks." The foreign ministers' meeting was originally scheduled for this week – but now the US and Russia are apparently backpedaling.

The braking maneuver follows the disappointing visit of President Volodymyr Zelensky (47) to the White House last Friday. The Ukrainian had originally wanted to secure a commitment for the delivery of US Tomahawk cruise missiles. Instead, according to media reports, Trump loudly pressured him to make concessions to the aggressor Russia.

Trump wants to “freeze” war as a first step

At least for the first time since Trump began his peace efforts at the beginning of the year, clearer contours of the positions are emerging:

► Trump wants to freeze the war along the existing front lines, as he confirmed in a post on"Truth Social." On Tuesday, Zelensky and several EU heads of state and government supported Trump's unofficial plan."The fighting should end immediately, and the current front line should serve as a starting point for negotiations," it said.

► Putin, on the other hand, insists – as was apparently also made clear during the Trump phone call – on the complete capture of the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. However, this would not even require Kyiv to cede any territory captured by the Russian army.