The White House has selected Budapest as the venue for a trilateral meeting between US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports Politico. According to the newspaper, Donald Trump's close personal relationship with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán played a role in the choice of location.

The US intelligence community has been considering several locations as possible locations for the meeting, but two sources told Politico that Budapest is emerging as the leading candidate. Vladimir Putin reportedly prefers Moscow, while French President Emmanuel Macron has favored Geneva. Switzerland has since said it is ready to provide a venue for the meeting and would not arrest Putin, even though he is a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued an arrest warrant for him.

For Ukraine, Budapest would bring back unpleasant memories, as it was here that the Budapest Memorandum was signed in 1994, in which Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom guaranteed Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity in exchange for the former Soviet state giving up its nuclear weapons. Russia ignored the document and invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed the Crimean peninsula. But Zelensky could probably imagine a more ideal location for the summit, also because of the Hungarian government's anti-Ukrainian campaign.