The Kremlin has reiterated that it hopes to organise a second summit between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on 17 November that the summit could take place as soon as the necessary preparations are completed, a position he has repeated several times recently.
“Right now we can hardly predict when these conditions will arise. Although, of course, we are all interested in seeing these conditions arise as soon as possible,” Peskov said.
“Therefore, as soon as these preparations are finalised and the conditions for the summit are created, we hope that it will take place,” the Kremlin speaker added.
Putin and Trump last met in August at a summit in Alaska, where they discussed ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. But those talks did not lead to a breakthrough.
In October, Trump said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Hungarian capital, but the meeting was cancelled.
“It just didn’t seem right to me. It seemed to me that we weren’t going to get to where we were supposed to get to. So I cancelled it. But we will do it in the future,” the US president said at the time.
Trump also said that” it is time” for tougher sanctions against Russia. Shortly before that, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as their subsidiaries.
Putin, commenting on the decision to meet, said that Trump was “rather talking about postponing it”. “Dialogue is always better than some kind of confrontation, disputes or even more so war,” the Russian leader said.
On 8 November, Trump said he still does not see Russia as ready to end hostilities, although he still prefers Budapest as the venue for a peace summit once the conditions for such a meeting are met.
On 16 November, the US president said he was open to new congressional sanctions that would target “any country that does business with Russia.” He did not provide any additional details.