WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is touting another meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin about his country’s invasion of Ukraine, this time in Budapest, Hungary — the city where Russia promised not to invade Ukraine three decades ago if it gave up its nuclear weapons.
“We’re going to be meeting in Hungary. Viktor Orbán is going to be hosting,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday, referring to his friend, that country’s authoritarian president.
Trump’s announcement came following a phone call with Putin and on the eve of his planned White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It is unclear whether Trump is aware of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia pledged to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Putin first violated that promise in 2014 when he invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula, and again in 2022 with his full-scale invasion.
Trump met Putin in Alaska in August, which ended without the ceasefire Trump had said Putin needed to agree to. It is unclear why Budapest was chosen as the location for the next meeting.
