There no plans for Putin-Trump meeting in a immediate future - media

There are currently no plans for U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet in the immediate future, Reuters reported on October 21, citing a White House official.

According to the source, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also have no plans for an in-person meeting in the near term, though the two held what was described as a “productive” phone call on October 20.

The clarification comes just days after Trump announced on October 16 that he would meet Putin in Budapest “in the coming weeks” to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

NBC News correspondent Garrett Haake reported on X, citing a senior White House official, that planning for the Budapest summit is currently “on hold.” The BBC and CBS News have also reported similar information.

The sudden shift follows earlier statements from Moscow indicating that preparations for the Budapest meeting were ongoing, though no date had been set.

The proposed summit — to be hosted by Hungary’s pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — was expected to be the second Trump-Putin meeting since Trump’s return to office in January. The two leaders previously met in Alaska on August 15 for talks on a possible peace framework for Ukraine, but the meeting yielded little progress.

The Budapest summit was to be preceded by working-level discussions between U.S. and Russian delegations led by Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov. However, CNN reported that the in-person meeting between the two top diplomats was postponed due to what sources described as “divergent views” and Moscow’s “maximalist” demands.

Russia attacked Novhorod-Siversky in Chernihiv oblast; four people killed, a child injured

Russian forces launched a large-scale drone attack on the town of Novhorod-Siverskyi in Chernihiv Oblast on October 21, killing four civilians and injuring seven others, local authorities reported.

Viacheslav Chaus, head of the Chernihiv Oblast Military Administration, said that around 20 Shahed drones were used in the overnight assault.

“Four deaths have already been confirmed. All of them are civilians – two men and two women. My condolences to the families,” Chaus said.

Seven more people were injured, including a 10-year-old girl who is being transferred to the Chernihiv Oblast Children’s Hospital. One person remains in serious condition, while the others sustained moderate injuries.

The attack also caused damage to civilian infrastructure, and emergency services are currently working at the scene.

Russian foreign minister claims that Russia will not stop fighting despite European calls for a ceasefire

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed that calls from European leaders for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine would, in his words, amount to “preserving the Nazi regime” and “banning the Russian language.”

The comments, reported by Kremlin-aligned outlets RIA Novosti and TASS , came after Lavrov met with his Ethiopian counterpart. He was responding to a joint statement from European leaders expressing support for Ukraine and endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump’s ongoing peace efforts.

“A ceasefire now would mean only one thing — that a vast part of Ukraine remains under the control of a Nazi regime,” Lavrov told reporters. “It would be the only place on Earth where an entire language is legally banned, even though it is one of the official UN languages and spoken by the majority of the population.”

Lavrov went on to accuse Ukraine’s Western allies of influencing Washington’s position, claiming that “European patrons and masters of President Zelensky persuaded the United States to shift course — to avoid seeking a long-term settlement and instead simply stop and let history decide.”