Trump to meet Putin in Budapest to discuss ending Ukraine war

US President Donald Trump said Thursday he would meet again with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to end the war in Ukraine.

A date has not been set, but Trump wrote on social media that the meeting would take place in Budapest, Hungary.

Trump's announcement came shortly after finishing a call with Putin.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of Trump, wrote on X: "The planned meeting between the American and Russian presidents is great news for the peace-loving people of the world. We are ready!"

Budapest resident György Szirmai said the meeting is "a positive development" and Hungary can play a key role "in discussions about the outcome of the war."

Trump's announcement about the Budapest meeting came one day before sitting down with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House.

The Ukrainian president has been seeking weapons that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory.

Zelenskyy has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump's calls for direct negotiations to end the war more seriously. Viktor Erbin, another Budapest resident, said, "Hungary doesn't have the same weight to present any arguments."

Talking about Orbán, he said, "We have a prime minister who basically playPutin's’s tune. Honestly, he's like his lackey. In reality, the Americans and the European Union need to provide military support for Ukraine to survive. Otherwise, it would have been lost long ago."

While most European Union countries have offered political, financial, and military support to Kyiv, Hungary under Orbán has charted a starkly different course - refusing to supply Ukraine with weapons or allow their transit through Hungarian territory, demanding sanctions relief and rapprochement with Russia, and adopting a combative stance toward both Kyiv and its EU backers.