CaliToday (31/10/2025): President Donald J. Trump has abruptly canceled a planned high-stakes summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, in what is being seen as a dramatic and sudden collapse of a major diplomatic initiative.
According to a bombshell report from the Financial Times, the decision was made after President Trump was personally briefed on a Russian memo outlining "non-starter" demands for ending the war in Ukraine. A subsequent, "tense" phone call between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and senior U.S. Senator Marco Rubio reportedly convinced the president that Moscow was not serious about a negotiated peace.
The cancellation dashes hopes for a potential diplomatic breakthrough and signals a new low in U.S.-Russia relations under the Trump-Vance administration.
The 'Non-Starter' Russian Memo
The planned Budapest meeting was intended to be a centerpiece of President Trump's "dealmaker" foreign policy, aiming to broker an end to the long-running conflict.
However, sources told the FT that the diplomatic process was poisoned by a memo, delivered by Moscow, which detailed its non-negotiable terms. The Russian demands reportedly included:
Territorial Concessions: A demand for Ukraine to formally cede territory captured by Russia.
Military Limitations: Severe, permanent restrictions on the size and capabilities of the Ukrainian military.
NATO Ban: A formal, legally-binding guarantee that Ukraine would be permanently barred from ever joining the NATO alliance.
These demands were seen by Washington as a call for Ukraine's total capitulation, not a starting point for negotiation.
The Tense Call That Sealed the Summit's Fate
The final straw, however, was a tense and confrontational back-channel phone call between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Senator Marco Rubio.
The involvement of Rubio, a long-time Republican foreign policy hawk, suggests a high-level attempt to gauge the Kremlin's true intentions.
According to the FT's sources, the call was not a negotiation but a blunt exchange that quickly escalated. The "tense" nature of the conversation, in which Lavrov reportedly reiterated Russia's hardline position, was taken as the definitive proof the White House needed.
The call allegedly convinced President Trump personally that the Kremlin was not engaging in good-faith diplomacy. The prevailing view in the White House reportedly became that Russia was attempting to use the summit not to find peace, but to "dictate terms" and create a propaganda victory by forcing a U.e.s. president to legitimize its demands.
In a classic "walk away from the table" move, President Trump ordered the summit to be canceled, unwilling to participate in a meeting he now believed was a "political trap."
The collapse of the Budapest summit marks a significant failure in diplomacy and suggests that the conflict in Ukraine, along with the deep freeze in U.S.-Russia relations, will continue with no clear off-ramp in sight.
Thế Anh
CaliToday.Net