By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to another summit to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, one day before the U.S. president was due to speak with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Trump said he and Putin would soon meet in Budapest after a more than two-hour-long phone call he described as productive. The Kremlin did not immediately comment.
The surprise development came as Zelenskiy was headed to the White House on Friday to push for more military support, including potential long-range offensive missiles.
Yet the positive tone following the U.S.-Russia call appeared to leave in question the possibility of such support in the near term.
ENERGY SYSTEMS TARGETED
Kyiv and Moscow have been escalating their war with massive attacks on energy infrastructure while NATO struggles to respond to a spate of Russian air incursions.
The Trump-Putin meeting will follow lower-level talks between Moscow and Washington next week, Trump said. No date was provided for the leaders’ meeting.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he would brief Zelenskiy on the Russia talks in the Oval Office tomorrow.
“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” he added.
UKRAINE WANTS TO EXPAND ATTACK RANGE
Ukraine has been seeking U.S. Tomahawk long-range missiles, which would put Moscow and other major Russian cities within range of missile fire from Ukraine.
Trump, a Republican who has vowed to end the war that Russia started with its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, had before Thursday expressed increasing frustration with Putin over ongoing attacks.
Trump has said he could supply the long-range weapons to Ukraine if Putin fails to come to the negotiating table.
In its latest barrage, Russia launched more than 300 drones and 37 missiles to target infrastructure across Ukraine in overnight attacks on Thursday, Zelenskiy said. Kyiv has ramped up its own attacks on Russian targets, including an oil refinery in the Saratov region on Thursday.
Russia has been hitting Ukraine’s energy and power facilities for consecutive winters as the war drags into its fourth year.
In the latest warnings to Russia, Trump said on Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pledged to stop buying oil from Russia, and that the administration would push China to do the same.
India has not confirmed any such commitment, though Reuters reported some Indian refiners are preparing to cut Russian oil imports, with expectations of a gradual reduction, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that Washington would “impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression” unless the war ends.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Colleen Jenkins and Rod Nickel)
