President Donald Trump’s plan for a swift meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin is on hold in the latest twist in his stop-and-go effort to resolve the war in Ukraine.

A planned summit between Mr Trump and Mr Putin was postponed indefinitely Tuesday after Moscow’s rejection of an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine cast a cloud over attempts at negotiations.

“There are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future,” a senior White House official said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a “productive call” but opted against an in-person meeting.

Last week Mr Trump announced that he and Mr Putin would meet soon in Hungary to try to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

But Mr Putin has been unwilling to consider concessions and Moscow has long demanded that Ukraine agree to cede more territory before any ceasefire.

Russia reiterated its longstanding terms for a peace deal in a private communique known as a “non-paper” that it sent to the US last weekend, according to two US officials.

The communique reaffirmed Russia’s demand for full control of the long-contested eastern Donbas region, according to one official.

Russia controls all of the province of Luhansk and about 75 per cent of neighbouring Donetsk, which together make up the Donbas region.

On Tuesday European leaders called on Washington to hold firm in demanding an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, with present battle lines to serve as the basis for any future talks.

Mr Trump, who spoke to Mr Putin on the phone last week and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had hoped for another high-profile session with the Russian leader after their August summit in Alaska failed to advance negotiations.

But the two sides postponed a preparatory meeting between Mr Rubio and Mr Lavrov that had been expected to take place in Budapest on Thursday.

The pair spoke by phone on Monday.

Mr Lavrov said the place and the timing of the next Trump-Putin summit was less important than the substance of implementing the understandings reached in Alaska.

The Kremlin said there was no clear date and that “serious preparation” for a summit was needed, which could take time.

“Listen, we have an understanding of the presidents, but we cannot postpone what has not been finalised,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

But neither side has publicly abandoned plans for the meeting.

Two senior European diplomats said the postponement of the Rubio-Lavrov meeting was a sign the Americans would be reluctant to go ahead with a Trump-Putin summit unless Moscow yields its demands.

“I guess the Russians wanted too much and it became evident for the Americans that there will be no deal for Trump in Budapest,” one diplomat said.

The second diplomat said the Russians “haven’t at all changed their position and are not agreeing to stop where they are”.

“And I assume Lavrov gave the same spiel, and Rubio was like, ‘See you later,'” they said.

Trump and Ukraine

Ukraine’s European allies have been concerned that Mr Trump could meet the Kremlin for a second time without getting any serious concessions from the Russian leader.

In a statement on Tuesday the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and the EU said they “strongly” supported President Trump’s position “that the fighting should stop immediately and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations”.

Trump has often changed his emphasis in public when speaking about Ukraine.

But last Friday, after his meeting with Mr Zelenskyy at the White House, he explicitly endorsed the position that a ceasefire should start with forces at their present positions.

Reuters and other news organisations reported that Mr Trump’s closed-door meeting with the Ukrainian president was contentious, with the US president repeatedly using profanity and pushing Mr Zelenskyy to accept some Russian demands.

But Mr Zelenskyy characterised the meeting as successful because it ended with Mr Trump publicly backing a ceasefire at the present lines, in accordance with Kyiv’s longstanding position.

The choice of Budapest as a venue for a Putin-Trump meeting is contentious within the EU because Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is one of the few leaders to maintain warm relations with Russia.

Any trip to Budapest would require Mr Putin to fly through the airspace of other EU countries.

On Tuesday Poland said it could force the Kremlin’s plane down and arrest him on an international warrant if he flew over its territory.

AP/Reuters