00:00Next, European leaders this Tuesday throwing their support behind President Trump's peace push for Ukraine
00:06while reaffirming their red lines as the Kremlin cast doubt on chances of an imminent summit between the U.S. leader and Vladimir Putin.
00:14In fact, it's been confirmed in the past hours that the much-touted summit to take place in Budapest between Trump and Putin will not actually be happening.
00:26A meeting in Budapest is no longer on the cards.
00:30The announcement followed a comment from Moscow earlier in the day, throwing doubts on the possible session between the two heads of state.
00:39The main thing is not the venue or the timing of the meeting, but rather how we will move forward on the issues that were agreed upon
00:47and on which broad understanding was reached in Anchorage.
00:54We agreed with the U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to continue these phone contacts.
00:58Moscow claims it wants lasting peace.
01:03European leaders find that hard to believe.
01:06And they're concerned about what the Russian president might negotiate with his unpredictable American counterpart.
01:13The U.S. has been particularly inconsistent on the issue of Ukraine.
01:17Last week, following a phone call with Putin, Trump threw a curveball to Vladimir Zelensky.
01:23Shifting from his recent stance that Ukraine could win background, he reverted to urging Kyiv to give up territory in order to end the war.
01:32Europeans and Ukrainians have welcomed Trump's call for a ceasefire that would freeze the current front lines.
01:38However, they wanted to serve as the starting point for negotiations.
01:41And notably, they say it's up to Kyiv to decide on any concessions.
01:47It's up to Ukraine to decide its territory and up to Europeans to decide their security.
01:53That's how things can move forward and in no other context.
01:56Brussels and Kyiv had been on the edge of not being included in the proposed meeting between Putin and Trump.
02:02Vladimir Zelensky had said he'd be ready to join if invited.
02:09Let's go straight to Washington.
02:11Our correspondent there is Fraser Jackson.
02:13Fraser, of course, before I start asking the questions, we're looking behind him to see whether I can see any movement White House-wise
02:19regarding the East Wind being taken down to construct Trump's ballroom.
02:23That was something we were going to talk about, but obviously Ukraine is taking precedent over all of that.
02:28And I can't see anything behind you that shows that anything's been demolished.
02:31So that's probably a good sign that we can't actually see it happening.
02:34Fraser, getting back to business now.
02:35Clearly, the situation with Ukraine didn't go the way that Zelensky expected it to go.
02:41And more word is coming from Kyiv that things didn't go well between the two leaders.
02:47Trump has a certain view of things, obviously.
02:49And one wonders, do we read anything into the cancellation or the decision to not go ahead and have this summit with Putin in Budapest?
02:58Do we read into that that perhaps Trump is already on side with what Putin wants?
03:03Or do we read into it that perhaps he's not as willing to be manipulated by Putin as some might think?
03:08What's your sense of it?
03:09Well, I think if you cast your mind back to when this was announced, that this meeting was going to be taking place,
03:18where there was a lot of fanfare, here on France 24, we said that you should watch that two-week time frame,
03:24because quite often that is something that Donald Trump uses when he doesn't actually want to deal with a problem
03:28and he kicks the can down the road.
03:29That is the famous two-week time phrase that he gives.
03:32And I said at the time I would be surprised if this meeting even went ahead.
03:36And now look where we are.
03:37This meeting now seemingly indefinitely postponed.
03:40One senior White House official saying that after being briefed on a phone call between Marco Rubio and Sergei Lavrov,
03:50the foreign minister for Russia, that the president ultimately pressed pause on this meeting,
03:55believing that both sides in the conflict were not ready to seriously talk peace.
04:00Now, the Ukrainians, for their part, Zelensky on Telegram today,
04:04said that the Russians were basically kicking the can down the road and stringing along Donald Trump
04:10and saying that they were only willing to talk about a peace deal once the threat of Tomahawk missiles was on the table.
04:17And now that it appears that Donald Trump said to the Ukrainians that they would not be getting that,
04:22that now, once again, Vladimir Putin has taken his foot off the gas and is no longer wanting to go ahead with this deal.
04:28So it now appears that these talks between the two sides were, quote, productive, according to the White House.
04:36But it does appear that there are still gaps between what the Russians are willing to talk about and to give up and to put forward and what the White House wants.
04:46So whether Donald Trump feels like he himself has been played by Vladimir Putin once again, that is the question we ask him over and over again.
04:54And he, for the last time we asked him, said that he's been played by many people through his life.
04:58He's been played by the best of them, but that this is not one of those situations.
05:02So we still, at the moment, kind of have this back and forth as to will they, won't they.
05:07But right now, it appears that we are no further ahead in this peace deal as Donald Trump wanted.
05:13Indeed. As you and I are talking about this, and we should talk about it because people around the world need to know.
05:19And as Donald Trump's trying to decide what to do next, a report comes in.
05:23A Russian drone attack on a northern Ukrainian town kills four people.
05:27This comes from the emergency services on the spot.
05:30And that's the reality, isn't it, Fraser, of what happens here?
05:32Because whilst Trump might hesitate or his advisers have their particular agenda, and Putin, of course, we know what he wants and what he's wanted all along,
05:40people in Ukraine continue to be under attack.
05:44This is the thing.
05:45And one wonders what it would take to sort of shift Trump's position on this in any way, shape or form, any substantive way.
05:53It appears that he listens to the last person who speaks to him, and that's that person, Zelensky.
05:57Yeah, and I think that is the million-dollar question.
06:04That is what European leaders, the allies of Ukraine, have been racking their brains for months trying to figure out.
06:11What exactly is it going to take to get the president fully on side and to stop listening to Vladimir Putin?
06:17Now, there was some reporting from the FT in the wake of that meeting between Zelensky and Donald Trump on Friday,
06:24which said that Donald Trump ultimately ended up spouting a lot of Kremlin talking points directly to Vladimir Zelensky,
06:31saying that Vladimir Putin had said that it was actually a special operation and not even a war that he was conducting.
06:38And that, of course, is straight out of the Kremlin playbook.
06:41So that conversation will be extremely worrying to a lot of the Europeans.
06:44Some of the diplomats that I've spoken to here in Washington were concerned about the debrief on that meeting that Zelensky gave to the Europeans.
06:52And they will now be trying to figure out what exactly they can do to get Trump on side once and for all,
06:58because right now it's kind of one step forward, two steps back.
07:02And as things stand at the moment, Donald Trump much more in the camp of Russia from a perspective of what Ukraine would have to give up were this war to end.
07:12Of course, he wants those battle lines frozen in their current place, which would mean effectively ceding 20 percent of Ukraine's territory to the Russians.
07:20And that is a nonstarter for the Ukrainians.
07:22So there is still a long way to go.
07:25But there is still obviously the man who was mainly in charge of this, Donald Trump, the one who can really broker the peace.
07:31He has also got a long way to go in terms of his persuasion from the allies of Ukraine.
07:36Fraser Jackson, as always, thank you very much indeed.
07:40Fraser Jackson, a correspondent there in Washington.
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