U.S. President Donald Trump said on October 16 that he had a phone call with Russian President Putin, and that the two sides would have a face-to-face meeting in Hungary.The Russian president's assistant Ussakov confirmed the two sides' phone call on the same day, saying that Putin said that the "war ax" will not change the Russian Ukrainian warfare.

Trump: Will meet with Putin in Budapest

Trump tweeted on social media on Friday that he had a long conversation with Putin on the same day, mainly on issues such as ending the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the subsequent Russian-U.S. trade.

Trump wrote that his phone call with Putin was "productive" and "made great progress." The two sides agreed to hold a high-level US-Russia meeting next week. The U.S. delegation will be led by Secretary of State Rubio, and the meeting venue has yet to be determined. After the high-level meeting, he and Putin will meet in Budapest to discuss how to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Trump did not mention the date of the meeting between U.S. and Russian leaders.

White House spokeswoman Levitt told reporters on Monday that Trump and Putin had talked for more than two hours, saying Trump still believed it was ¡°possible¡± for Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky to negotiate directly to end the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, ¡°I think the president (Trump) didn¡¯t close the door at all.¡±

However, in response to a question about whether Putin pledged to hold a tripartite meeting of U.S.-Russia-Ukraine leaders, Levitt simply said that Putin pledged to sit down and talk to Trump.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban tweeted on social media that day confirming that Trump and Putin planned to meet in Budapest and said "we are ready."

Putin warns: "Tomahawk" will not change the situation of the Russia-Ukraine war

Ushakov said on the 16th that Putin had a phone call with Trump that day to discuss issues such as Russia-US relations and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and told the other party that even if the United States provided Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, it would not change the Russia-Ukraine battlefield situation.

Ussakov said the call was initiated by the Russian side and lasted about two and a half hours. Trump emphasized in the call that ending the Russian-Ukrainian conflict would open up broad prospects for Russian-Ukrainian economic cooperation.

On April 7, 2017, a U.S. Navy ship launched a Tomahawk missile in the Mediterranean Sea. Xinhua News Agency (Photo courtesy of US Navy)

Ussakov said that Trump proposed to hold a meeting of the two leaders in Budapest, Hungary, and Putin expressed his support. The two sides will immediately begin preparations for the meeting and continue to communicate on a possible date for the meeting.

Ussakov said that Putin reiterated Russia¡¯s commitment to resolving the Ukrainian crisis through political and diplomatic means in the call. On the possibility that the United States could provide Ukraine with ¡°tacks¡± missiles, Putin reiterated that the ¡°tacks¡± missiles will not change the situation on the battlefield and will only cause ¡°significant damage¡± to Russian-US relations and the mediation operation around the crisis in Ukraine.

Ushakov said that Trump stressed during the call that Ukraine needs to achieve peace as soon as possible, and he would consider all the opinions put forward by Putin during this call when he met with Ukrainian President Zelensky on the 17th.

Trump will meet Zelensky to discuss the "tacks" issue

Trump will meet with Zelensky at the White House on the 17th. It is expected that the two sides will discuss the issue of the United States providing Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. According to US media reports, Zelensky said that the main topics of his meeting with Trump will be to strengthen Ukraine's air defense and long-range strike capabilities and maintain pressure on Russia.

Analysts pointed out that the U.S. at this time discussing the "tacks" issue meant pressure on Russia, the Ukrainian side hopes to gain deep-seated strike capabilities on Russia and increase the negotiation code. The U.S. wants to force the Russian side to negotiate with the Ukrainian side. However, the Russian side has the ability to cope with the "tacks", the U.S. side has limited will and ability to provide the "tacks", even if the Ukrainian side obtains the missile in the short term is also difficult to have too much impact on the situation.

Analysts believe that in the current context of Trump's eagerness to promote a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and Uzbekistan's overall disadvantage, Uzbekistan's request for the "Tomahawk" is mainly to increase bargaining chips with Russia and release the United States to increase its support for Ukraine. signal. Zelensky said earlier that Ukraine's acquisition of the "tomahawk" would not necessarily be used, as long as it could bring Russia back to the negotiating table.

On August 15th, Trump and Putin held the first face-to-face meeting between American and Russian leaders in more than four years in Anchorage, Alaska, USA, but no agreement was reached. In late September, Trump declared that he believed that with the support of the European Union and NATO, Ukraine was expected to "win back all its territory".

Recently, Trump has repeatedly stated that he is considering providing Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range that can cover Moscow, the capital of Russia, through NATO European member states. Recently, Russia has continuously issued warnings about the trend of "Tomahawk" between the United States and Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said on the 15th of this month that if the United States decides to provide Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, it will cause great damage to Russia-US relations. (Reporter: Xu Jianmei, Zhao Bing, Zhang Jiye, Li Dongxu)