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There are "no preparations" for American leader President Trump to confer with Russia's Putin "in the near term", a administration representative has declared.

This past week the US president said he and the Russian president would hold talks in Hungary's capital within two weeks to address the Ukraine conflict.

A preparatory meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov was due to be held this week - but the administration said the two had had a "productive" discussion and that a meeting was no longer "required".

The administration withheld any more details on why the talks had been put on hold.

Earlier Events

Trump had raised the possibility of a Budapest summit via telephone with Putin, a just prior to hosting Ukrainian President President Zelensky in the Oval Office.

Various sources suggested his meeting with the Ukrainian leader had been a "heated exchange", with those familiar indicating Trump had urged him to give up extensive regions of eastern Ukraine as part of a deal with Russia.

Yet, on Monday Trump supported a ceasefire proposal supported by Ukraine and EU officials to freeze the hostilities on the existing battle lines.

"Leave it as is in its current state," he stated.

Russia has frequently resisted against pausing the existing front lines.

The Russian government was only interested in "enduring stability", Lavrov commented on this week, implying that pausing conflict would merely represent a short-term truce.

Negotiating Stances

The "root causes" of the hostilities needed to be addressed, Lavrov said, using Russian diplomatic language for a series of comprehensive conditions that involve the acknowledgment of full Russian sovereignty over the Donbas as well as the disarmament of Ukraine – a non-starter for Kyiv and its European partners.

Zelensky commented conversations concerning the current lines were the "start of negotiations" but that Russia was "doing everything" to avoid diplomacy.

He also said the sole subject that could make Moscow "become engaged" was that of the delivery of extended-range arms to the Ukrainian military.

Military Considerations

The Russian president's unplanned conversation with the US leader last Thursday occurred before speculation that the United States was considering delivering long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine that could potentially strike inside Russia.

Zelensky said it was the weapons consideration that had pressured the Kremlin to participate in talks. The talk about the weapons systems had emerged as a "significant input" in negotiations", he commented.