After speaking with Putin on the phone on Oct. 16, Trump had called the conversation very productive and said that the sides had agreed on Budapest as the location of further high-level U.S.-Russian preparatory talks.
“It is fantastic news that U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have spoken again, and even more fantastic that they will soon meet in Budapest,” Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in response to the news in a post on his Facebook page.
In a weekly interview with Kossuth Rádió the following day, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán boasted that “there wasn’t really any other option” than to hold the summit in Budapest. Because Hungary had seceded from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has placed an international arrest warrant on Putin, Orbán said Budapest was now the only place in Europe where such a meeting could be held.
Szijjártó attributed Orbán’s productive working relationship with the presidents of both Russia and the United States as a contributing factor for the choice of Budapest as the meeting’s location, lauding him as “the single politician in the European Union able to simultaneously maintain cooperation […] with leaders of all the world’s great powers.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov concurred, saying that Orbán’s good relations with both Trump and Putin contributed to Budapest being tapped as the venue of the summit on the situation in Ukraine.
Following talks with Trump in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 19, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told U.S. news channel NBC that he would be open to the meeting in Budapest. Despite comparing Putin to the Hamas terrorist organization, Zelensky said he was ready to meet him personally at the planned peace summit in the Hungarian capital. When asked if Ukraine could give up territory for peace, Zelenskyy said the war could be ended through diplomatic means but suggested that his country would not make further territorial concessions to Russia.
European Commission spokesman Olof Gill told a regular daily press conference in Brussels on Oct. 17 that the EC hailed the prospect of a meeting in Budapest between the U.S. and Russian presidents, provided that the talks would contribute to ending the war in Ukraine.
However, by Oct. 22, the European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, Jessika Roswall, told a European Parliament debate on support for Ukraine that she was concerned ahead of the planned Budapest peace summit that Russia “shows no genuine interest in peace.”
Apparently having gotten a similar sense, President Trump abruptly canceled the planned summit.
“It just didn’t feel right to me,” Trump said. “It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I canceled it.”
According to U.S. officials, it became clear that Putin’s stance on ending the war had not significantly shifted from the last time the two met at a U.S. air base in Alaska.
Instead, the Trump administration proceeded to impose sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil, and almost three dozen of their subsidiaries for the first time since Trump returned to the White House.
“I just felt it was time,” Trump said of the new sanctions at the White House. “We waited a long time.” The Trump administration framed the sanctions as a means of hastening the end of hostilities, the onus for which it placed on Russia.
“Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, [the U.S. Department of] Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement Wednesday, adding it was “the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire.”
As of Oct. 27, Szijjártó said the U.S. sanctions against Russia had not yet taken effect and were not disrupting Hungary’s energy imports, emphasizing that the government would closely monitor the situation. He added that Orbán will have an opportunity to personally consult with Trump during his visit to the United States next week.
Responding to remarks by the U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker, in which he urged countries still reliant on Russian oil and gas like Hungary, Turkey, and Slovakia to develop concrete plans for energy independence “as soon as possible,” Szijjártó stated, “as far as our energy supply is concerned, I am not in favor of any kind of messaging.”
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of October 31, 2025.
Producing journalism that is worthy of the name is a costly business. For over 30 years, the publishers, editors and reporters of the Budapest Business Journal have striven to bring you business news that works, information that you can trust, that is factual, accurate and presented without fear or favor.Newspaper organizations across the globe have struggled to find a business model that allows them to continue to excel, without compromising their ability to perform. Most recently, some have experimented with the idea of involving their most important stakeholders, their readers.
We would like to offer that same opportunity to our readers. We would like to invite you to help us deliver the quality business journalism you require. Hit our Support the BBJ button and you can choose the how much and how often you send us your contributions.
