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There are "no preparations" for US President Donald Trump to confer with Russia's Vladimir Putin "in the near term", a White House official has declared.

Last Thursday the US president indicated he and the Russian president would meet in Budapest in the coming fortnight to discuss the ongoing hostilities.

A preparatory meeting between America's top diplomat Secretary Rubio and his opposite number Sergei Lavrov was due to be held recently - but the administration said the two had had a "productive" conversation and that a meeting was no longer "needed".

The White House withheld further information on the reason the negotiations had been delayed.

Previous Developments

The US president had discussed a Hungarian meeting over the phone with Putin, a just prior to hosting Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House.

Various sources indicated his talks with Zelensky had been a "heated exchange", with those familiar indicating Trump had pushed him to give up significant territories of Ukraine's east as part of a settlement with Russia.

Nevertheless, on this week Trump supported a peace initiative endorsed by Kyiv and EU officials to pause the conflict on the present positions.

"Leave it as is in its current state," he remarked.

Moscow has repeatedly pushed back against pausing the existing front lines.

The Russian government was solely focused on "enduring stability", Lavrov commented on Tuesday, implying that freezing the front line would simply constitute a brief pause.

Political Perspectives

The "fundamental issues" of the war required resolution, the Russian diplomat said, using Kremlin shorthand for a series of maximalist demands that encompass the acceptance of full Russian sovereignty over the eastern region as well as the disarmament of Ukraine – a unacceptable proposition for Kyiv and its European partners.

The Ukrainian president stated talks regarding the front line were the "commencement of dialogue" but that Russia was "doing everything" to prevent dialogue.

He additionally stated the sole subject that could make Moscow "take notice" was that of the provision of distance-capable munitions to the Ukrainian military.

Strategic Factors

Putin's spontaneous discussion with Trump last Thursday occurred before rumors that the United States was considering delivering distance-capable weapons to Ukraine that could theoretically target inside Russia.

Zelensky stated it was the Tomahawks issue that had pressured the Kremlin to enter into dialogue. The conversation concerning the weapons systems had proven to be a "valuable contribution" in international relations", he commented.