US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Budapest, Hungary, for the next round of peace talks on Ukraine. The summit was confirmed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Thursday.
‘We are ready,’ Orbán declared in a post on X, adding that the ‘planned meeting between the American and Russian presidents is great news for the peace-loving people of the world.’ In a separate post on Facebook, he also stated that preparations for the summit had begun, following a phone conversation with Trump.
Trump and Putin reportedly spoke for around two hours on Thursday, a call the US president described as ‘good and productive’. Trump added that ‘high-level advisors’ from both countries will meet next week ahead of the Budapest summit. ‘President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed-upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this “inglorious” war between Russia and Ukraine to an end,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The announcement came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to meet Trump at the White House on Friday to request the delivery of long-range Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv. With a maximum range of 2,400 kilometres, the system would enable Ukraine to strike Moscow and targets far beyond Russia’s border regions. Putin warned that such a provision would mark a new level of escalation between Russia and the Western powers.
The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to build on the momentum of last week’s breakthrough Israel–Hamas peace deal brokered by Trump as a foundation for renewed negotiations on Ukraine. Viktor Orbán—one of the most consistent advocates for peace in both Ukraine and Gaza—was the only Central European leader invited to the signing ceremony in Egypt earlier this week, where Trump praised him as a ‘great leader’ and pledged the United States’ ‘100 per cent backing’ ahead of Hungary’s 2026 parliamentary elections.
Following the first Trump–Putin summit in Alaska in August, Budapest had already emerged as a potential venue for a trilateral meeting between Zelenskyy, Putin, and Trump. However, those talks never materialized, with both warring sides accusing each other of refusing serious negotiations and compromise.
The upcoming Budapest summit represents a diplomatic blow to Zelenskyy, as relations between Ukraine and Hungary have reached historic lows in recent weeks due to continued Ukrainian strikes on the Druzhba pipeline and Orbán’s veto on Kyiv’s EU accession. The fact that Putin and Trump will meet in Hungary is also viewed as a setback for Brussels and the EU’s more hawkish member states, whose primary objective has been to isolate Budapest and bypass Orbán’s vetoes.
Hungary, an EU and NATO member state, withdrew from the International Criminal Court earlier this year, shortly before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Budapest in May. Like Putin, Netanyahu is subject to an arrest warrant issued by the Hague court.
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