Trump to meet Putin in Hungary, as Ukraine presses for Tomahawk missiles

US President Donald Trump is redoubling his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, announcing a second meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin one day before sitting down with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.

Trump’s announcement came shortly after finishing a call with Putin on Thursday. A date has not been set, but Trump said the meeting would take place in Budapest, Hungary, and suggested that it could happen in about two weeks.

“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” Trump wrote on social media.

The two leaders previously met in Alaska in August, which did not produce a diplomatic breakthrough, a source of frustration for the US leader who had expected that his long-standing relationship with Putin could pave the way to resolving a conflict that began nearly four years ago.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, said the Russian president initiated the call, which he described as “very frank and trusting”. He said Putin emphasised to Trump that selling long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, something the US president has publicly discussed, would “inflict significant damage to the relations between our countries”.