Trump-Putin Meeting on Ukraine Won’t Be Happening Anytime Soon

This is Washington Edition, the newsletter about money, power and politics in the nation’s capital. Today, senior editor Joe Sobczyk looks at the state of play for negotiations on a ceasefire in Ukraine. Sign up here. Email our editors here.

Frozen in Place

The bottom just fell out of the already low expectations for a second summit between President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin to talk about the war in Ukraine.

Both the White House and the Kremlin today threw cold water on the idea that any meeting will be happening in the immediate future, Bloomberg’s Kate Sullivan and Eric Martin reported.

Likewise a preparatory meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Trump had promised would happen “very soon.” A White House official said today that Rubio and Lavrov had a productive call yesterday and it wasn’t necessary that they meet.

Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, left, and US President Donald Trump shake hands during a joint news conference at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, US, on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. Discussions between President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin concluded after more than two-and-a-half hours at their summit in Alaska, marking their longest in-person meeting and offering a sign that by the US leader’s own metric the talks have gone well. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg — Putin and Trump at their meeting in Alaska in August.

It’s quite a pivot from just a few days ago. After getting off a two-hour call with Putin last Thursday, Trump announced he’d meet with the Russian president in Budapest “within two weeks or so.”

Two weeks is something of a throwaway time frame for Trump that’s more notion than deadline. But the president was optimistic about the talks being “successful, save a lot of lives.”

The turnabout may be a bit of positive news for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He met with Trump at the White House last Friday in hopes of using president’s increasing frustration with Putin and the afterglow of Trump’s Middle East dealmaking to persuade him to send Ukraine Tomahawk missiles and other support to force Russia into negotiations.

But he was undercut by Trump’s call with Putin. Afterward, Trump equivocated on military aid as well as the threat of new measures to squeeze Russia’s economy. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said yesterday the chamber would hold off considering bipartisan sanction legislation until after the planned summit.

European nations, meanwhile, are working with Ukraine on a multipronged proposal that would freeze Russia’s war along current battle lines to start peace talks. Moscow has rejected that in the past, and Lavrov said today the Kremlin’s position hasn’t changed. (Trump has also called for Russia and Ukraine to “stop where they are.”)

The back and forth on the summit may be end up being posturing for advantage by both sides. But right now, with the war raging on, the only thing that’s frozen in place is any movement toward a negotiated end to the conflict. — Joe Sobczyk

Don’t Miss

Trump predicted an upcoming meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, would yield a “good deal” on trade — while also conceding that the highly anticipated talks may not happen.

The president urged Senate Republicans to hold the line as the government shutdown extended into its 21st day, warning Democrats that they would bear the political fallout for the impasse.

Vice President JD Vance said he remains optimistic about the future of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas despite a flareup in violence over the weekend, part of a bid to keep talks progressing on the future of Gaza.

A New York man pardoned by Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was arrested Sunday after threatening to kill House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted Trump before his reelection, offered another public rebuttal to escalating Republican attacks on his work.

The Trump administration is involved in talks for a US company to access one of the world’s largest untapped deposits of tungsten, a metal used by the Pentagon to make ammunition, projectiles and other weaponry.

The US plans to open more land to ranchers and build more processing plants to bolster domestic beef production as consumers struggle with a surge in prices, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is set to meet with Trump at the White House on Nov. 18 and sign agreements on artificial intelligence, defense, nuclear cooperation and trade.

A millionaire tax in Massachusetts that New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani holds up as a model has generated $3 billion more in revenue than expected without forcing significant high-profile departures from the state.

Trump’s lawyers urged a judge to let him continue a $10 billion lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch over a Wall Street Journal article claiming he sent a bawdy birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein, arguing an identical note recently handed over to the House Oversight Committee doesn’t prove it’s real.

Watch & Listen

Today on Bloomberg Television’s Balance of Power early edition at 1 p.m., hosts Joe Mathieu and Tyler Kendall interviewed Natasha Hall of the Center for Strategic and International Studies about US efforts to reinforce the ceasefire in Gaza and other developments in the Middle East.

On the program at 5 p.m., Joe and Julie Fine talk with Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas about the shutdown and with Meghan O’Sullivan, who was deputy national security adviser in the Bush administration, about latest in the Middle East and the prospects of a meeting between Trump and Putin.

On the Big Take podcast, host David Gura and Bloomberg’s Paris Bureau Chief Alan Katz discuss the brazen theft of royal necklaces, tiaras and earrings from Paris’ famous Louvre, the latest in the investigation and what might happen to the priceless jewels. Listen on iHeart, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Map of the Day

Motorists in the US travelled about 295 billion miles in August, up 0.9% from a year earlier and exceeding the pre-Covid peak in 2019, according to new data from the Federal Highway Administration. But drivers in the Midwest aren’t getting behind the wheel as much as those in other regions. Traffic in states like Minnesota and Nebraska slipped even as drivers in the South and West spent more time on the highway. Interstate highways — especially in rural areas — saw the biggest year-over-year gains, suggesting that Americans are taking advantage of lower gas prices to take longer trips. — Gregory Korte

What’s Next

The Mortgage Bankers Association releases data on home loan applications tomorrow.

Existing home sales for September will be reported by the National Association of Realtors on Thursday.

The delayed consumer price index for September is set to be released on Friday.

The University of Michigan’s final read of consumer sentiment for the month will be released Friday.

The summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations opens Saturday in Malaysia.

The Federal Reserve’s rate-setting committee meets Oct. 28-29.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit opens Oct. 31.

Seen Elsewhere

Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million as compensation for investigations of his actions, claims that would be vetted by his appointees, the New York Times reports.
Legislation attacking longstanding public health protections has cropped up in multiple states, pushed by allies of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Associated Press reports.
Atlanta is at the epicenter of a nationwide surge of fraudulent rental applications as scammers use doctored financial documents to qualify for luxury apartments, the Wall Street Journal reports.