Hungary

Budapest, September 24, 2026. The Hungarian press is particularly focused on the gap between the enthusiasm displayed by Marco Rubio and the caution of Donald Trump himself regarding the actual holding of a meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Miami in December. On Wednesday, in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the US Secretary of State announced the invitation after a 50-minute conversation with Sergey Lavrov. According to 444, Rubio explained that such a summit would give Putin "the opportunity to meet not only with the President [of the United States], but also with world leaders," adding: "If you only meet with people you agree with, the meetings will be very pleasant, but you won't solve problems. To solve problems, you need to meet with people you don't agree with."

Telex specifies that, according to Meduza, Rubio hopes Putin will accept the invitation, which could lay "the foundation for a broader agreement," while also recalling that other leaders invited to the summit are advocating for increased diplomatic isolation of Russia. In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated on Wednesday, via the state news agency TASZSZ, that Putin "is ready" to meet with Trump, without any concrete details having been fixed yet.

However, the Hungarian press emphasizes that Trump himself was much less affirmative than his Secretary of State. Asked in New York, where he had just received Volodymyr Zelensky for a 40-minute tête-à-tête, he replied, quoted by HVG: "I know I'm going to meet him. We've already had a meeting in Alaska. I think he'd be ready to have another one. But in Miami, I'm not sure."

Hungarian headlines also note that Zelensky has long been calling for a trilateral format with Trump and Putin, an option that Moscow rules out: according to Peskov, a summit meeting would only make sense if a peace agreement had already been negotiated in detail, and Putin continues to offer Zelensky to come and meet him in Moscow, an invitation systematically refused by Kiev. Index HU finally recalls that Trump himself had addressed Putin as early as Tuesday, from the UN podium, publicly urging him to end the war against Ukraine.