Russian President Putin (L) and U.S. President Donald Trump (R) pose for a photo during the welcoming ceremony prior to the meeting on the war in Ukraine at a U.S. air base on August 15, 2025, in Anchorage, Alaska, United States.Read Less | Contributor/Getty Images
The spokesperson for President Vladimir Putin dismissed media reports on the possibility that the Russian leader could travel to the proposed Budapest summit on the same plane as U.S. President Donald Trump.
Putin faces a logistical problem in traveling to the Trump meeting in Hungary, the date and finer details of which are yet to be confirmed, to discuss ending the Russian war in Ukraine.
European Union (EU) airspace is closed to Russian aircraft, and the Kremlin will have serious security concerns about its president flying over hostile countries. A direct route would mean traveling to Hungary over Poland, both EU members and NATO allies. While Hungary has warm relations with Moscow, Poland—which neighbors war-torn Ukraine—does not.
“I regard it as a fantastical version,” Kremlin official Dmitry Peskov told journalists, originally in Russian, responding to a question about the speculation in the media, state news agency TASS reported.
Putin Faces Polish Arrest
The Polish foreign minister warned that Putin’s plane could be forced to land on Poland’s territory—and the Russian leader arrested—if it traveled through its airspace for the Trump meeting in Hungary.
“I cannot guarantee that an independent Polish court won’t order the government to escort such an aircraft down to hand the suspect to the court in The Hague,” Radosław Sikorski told Polish broadcaster Radio Rodzina on Tuesday, according to national media.
The Netherlands-based International Criminal Court in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine following the Russian invasion.
Instead, Putin faces flying a longer, circuitous route via Turkey to Hungary.
Trump-Putin Meeting in Works as Ukraine War Continues
It is not clear when Trump and Putin will meet in Budapest. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are in negotiations to lay the groundwork for a successful meeting between their respective leaders.
Trump spoke to Putin last Thursday, and the two agreed to the meeting, a follow-up to the Alaska summit in August. Trump is trying to end Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, but has not yet succeeded following several months of diplomacy.
Ukraine and its European allies want Trump to apply greater pressure on Putin to end the war by strengthening Ukrainian forces with more and better firepower, and putting tougher sanctions on Russia and its strategic partners, particularly China. They say Putin only responds to hard power, not diplomacy.
Zelensky Wants Tomahawks
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine met with Trump at the White House on Friday after the Putin call, hoping to secure a supply of long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles from the U.S. to use against Russia. But Trump has not yet agreed to that request, concerned about the escalation of the war that such a move would entail.
Instead, Trump emerged from the meeting telling Zelensky and Putin to pause the fighting along the current front lines. While Ukraine has said it wants a ceasefire, Russia has repeatedly rejected the idea.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, called the meeting with Zelensky “very interesting, and cordial, but I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL!”
“Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts,” Trump continued. “They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide! No more shooting, no more Death, no more vast and unsustainable sums of money spent.”
Russia says it invaded Ukraine to halt Kyiv’s ambitions to join the U.S-led NATO alliance, which Moscow regards as a major security threat, and to protect ethnic Russians from what it claims is persecution by the authorities. But Ukraine says Russia is waging an imperial war of conquest to eradicate Ukrainian sovereignty and identity, and illegally bring it under Kremlin control. (Newsweek but headline changed)
