Trump-Putin summit on hold as Moscow rejects ceasefire plan

Plans for a second in-person meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been put on hold after Moscow rejected a proposal to begin a ceasefire by freezing the front lines in Ukraine, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. The White House said there are no plans for a Trump-Putin summit in the immediate future after a preparatory phone call between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which Washington described as productive and sufficient without an in-person meeting.

Trump had announced last week that he would meet Putin in Budapest to try to halt more than three years of fighting in Ukraine, following a 90-minute phone call he called productive. He later met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington, where he publicly endorsed stopping the fighting at the current battle lines. On Tuesday Trump told reporters, "I don't want to have a wasted meeting," and said decisions about any future summit would be announced in coming days.

Russian officials have signaled resistance to a freeze of the front lines. Foreign Minister Lavrov said Moscow had not changed its position from understandings...