TRUMP: ‘I DON’T WANT A WASTE OF TIME’: After Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with his Russian counterpart and reported back that Russia has flatly rejected President Donald Trump’s proposal to freeze the battle lines in Ukraine, and “let history decide,” who won, Trump abruptly pulled the plug on a peace summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin that was to be held in Budapest in the coming weeks.
“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting, I don’t want to have a waste of time,” Trump said at an afternoon White House event. “You never know what’s going to happen. But, a lot of things are happening on the war front, with Ukraine and Russia. And we’ll be notifying you over the next two days as to what we’re doing.”
Asked specifically if Putin’s intransigence would prompt him to reconsider allowing NATO to buy Tomahawk Cruise missiles for Ukraine, Trump said, “We’ll see what happens. We haven’t made a determination.”
Despite Russia’s unequivocal rejection of his call for an immediate ceasefire, Trump still seems to think he can reach a peace deal. “Look, it’s a vicious war,” he said. “They’re shooting and they’re killing people. And I think Putin wants it to end, and I think Zelensky wants it to end, and I think it’s going to end.”
“I said go to the line, go to the line of battle, or the battlefield lines, and, I mean, you pull back and you go home and everybody takes some time off, because you have two countries that are killing each other, two countries that are losing five to 7,000 soldiers a week,” he said. “But, a lot of things are happening. I think we could get it.”
TRUMP’S SECOND MEETING WITH PUTIN PUT ON ICE, WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL CONFIRMS
LAVROV: ‘AN IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE WOULD LEAD NOWHERE’: Taking questions from reporters in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov could not have been more clear, that as far as Russia is concerned any ceasefire proposal is a nonstarter.
“I wish to officially confirm that Russia has not altered its positions from the understandings achieved during the extensive negotiations between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska,” Lavrov said. “Voices from Washington (a reference to Trump) suggest that we must halt immediately, cease all further discussion, and let history judge. But stopping now would mean ignoring the root causes of this conflict.”
“What is needed is a long-term, sustainable peace, not an immediate ceasefire that would lead nowhere,” Lavrov said. “A ceasefire would not only allow for the rearmament of the Kiev regime but also encourage its terrorist activities,” and “would mean only one thing — that a vast portion of Ukraine remains under Nazi rule.”
“To simply stop and let history judge,” Lavrov concluded, “runs entirely counter to what Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump agreed upon in Anchorage – focusing on root causes, rejecting Ukraine’s NATO integration, and fully securing the lawful rights of Russian and Russian-speaking populations.”
ZELENSKY: ‘TOMAHAWKS … MAY HOLD THE INDISPENSABLE KEY TO PEACE’: In posts on social media and in his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted that Putin immediately lost interest in the Budapest meeting as soon as Trump took Tomahawk cruise missiles off the table.
“As soon as the issue of long-range capabilities for us, for Ukraine, became less immediate, Russia’s interest in diplomacy faded almost automatically,” Zelensky said, accusing Russia of doing “everything to weasel out of diplomacy.”
“The discussion on Tomahawks turned out to be a major investment in diplomacy. We forced Russia to reveal that Tomahawks are precisely the card they take seriously,” Zelensky said. “This signals that this very issue, the issue of our deep strike capabilities, may hold the indispensable key to peace. The greater Ukraine’s long-range reach, the greater Russia’s willingness to end the war. These weeks reaffirmed it.”
As if to underscore Putin’s disdain for Trump’s peace overtures, Russia launched another massive drone and missile attack overnight that killed six civilians, including a mother and her young daughters, and struck a kindergarten in Karkiv.
In a joint Peace Statement signed by 12 NATO allies, including Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and Finland, the leaders accused Putin of “stalling tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace.”
“We strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately, and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations,” the statement said. “We must ramp up the pressure on Russia’s economy and its defense industry, until Putin is ready to make peace.”
“We are developing measures to use the full value of Russia’s immobilized sovereign assets so that Ukraine has the resources it needs.”
A MASSIVE RUSSIAN DRONE AND MISSILE ATTACK ON UKRAINE KILLS AT LEAST 6 PEOPLE
Good Wednesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Christopher Tremoglie. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow me on Threads and/or on X @jamiejmcintyre.
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HAPPENING TODAY: Vice President JD Vance is in Israel for a second day, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attempting to shore up Gaza’s fragile ceasefire with discussion of the way forward, including a timetable for disarming Hamas, the deployment of an international security force in Gaza, and decisions about who will eventually govern the territory.
Vance is also scheduled to meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. He is accompanied by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
“Things are going frankly better than I expected that they were,” Vance said yesterday, noting that despite a flare-up of violence, the ceasefire appears to be holding. “This is a very, very tough situation. You have two peoples, two enemies who fought a very tough conflict against each other. You have a very tough terrorist organization on one hand that murdered a lot of innocent people. You’ve got an Israeli Army that was defending itself on the other.”
“So, we’ve got a lot of work left to do. This is going to take a very, very long time,” he said.
VANCE VOICES OPTIMISM FOR GAZA CEASEFIRE DEAL AFTER CRACKS START TO SHOW
TRUMP: ‘MIDDLE EAST ALLIES’ NOT THE U.S. WILLING TO ‘STRAIGHTEN OUT HAMAS’: Ever since he brokered the historic ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza, President Trump has warned Hamas that they must disarm or they will be wiped out.
“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” Trump posted on Truth Social last week. “They agreed that they’d be very good, very straight, they wouldn’t be killing people, and they have killed people. That wasn’t the deal we made,” Trump said yesterday. “They’re pretty violent people I would say, that. We could put that out in two minutes. We’re giving them a chance.”
“If they don’t honor the deal, they’ll be taken care of very quickly, but I’d rather not have to do that,” he said and later followed up with another threatening post on his social media platform, suggesting that unnamed Middle East allies would welcome the chance to go into Gaza “with a heavy force and ‘straighten out Hamas.’”
“I told these countries, and Israel, ‘NOT YET!’ There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right. If they do not, an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL! I would like to thank all of those countries that called to help,” he wrote.
In a weekend interview with Fox News, Trump made clear he has no intention of sending U.S. forces into Gaza. “If we have to, we will disarm them. Whether it’s me or the U.S. or it’s a proxy. It could be Israel with our backing,” Trump said. “We won’t have boots on the ground. There’s no reason to.”
TRUMP SAYS ‘NOT YET!’ TO SENDING FORCES INTO GAZA TO END HAMAS
ALSO TODAY: President Trump meets with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte this afternoon at 4 p.m. at the White House. The NATO website says, “There is no planned media opportunity,” but as we know, Trump will be the judge of that.
THE RUNDOWN:
Washington Examiner: Trump’s second meeting with Putin put on ice, White House official confirms
Washington Examiner: Vance voices optimism for Gaza ceasefire deal after cracks start to show
Washington Examiner: Trump says ‘NOT YET!’ to sending forces into Gaza to end Hamas
Washington Examiner: Colombia’s Petro sees Trump-backed ex-president’s acquittal as path to US sanctions
Washington Examiner: Pardoned Jan. 6 participant arrested for allegedly threatening to ‘eliminate’ Jeffries
Washington Examiner: Man drives car into security gate near White House
Washington Examiner: Musk says Trump transportation chief ‘Sean Dummy’ trying to ‘kill’ NASA
Washington Examiner: Peer-reviewed studies suggest UFOs photographed in orbit prior to Space Age
Washington Times: ‘He lost us’: Generals, senior officers say trust in Hegseth has evaporated
AP: Hegseth changes policy on how Pentagon officials communicate with Congress
AP: A massive Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine kills at least 6 people, officials say
The Hill: Ukraine, US Finalizing Deal for 25 Patriot Systems, Zelensky Says
DefenseScoop: Looking to Deter Russia, Lawmakers Seek to Prioritize Defense Cooperation on NATO’s Eastern Flank
AP: Japan says it plans to tell Trump it will build up military, upgrade security strategy
AP: North Korea test-fires ballistic missiles ahead of Trump’s Asia trip
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Northrop: ‘Multiple‘ B-21s in Ground Test, Production Increase in Negotiations
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Not Just Spies and Saboteurs: Satellite Operators Say Cybercrime Is a Constant Threat
Breaking Defense: Lockheed Considering Modifying Existing Missiles into Lower Cost Designs
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Startup Apex Latest to Plan Golden Dome Demo with Launch Set for 2026
Defense One: Shield AI’s Unmanned Fighter Jet Concept Pitched as a Drone Wingman or Solo Aircraft
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Lockheed Says It’s Self-Funding Prototypes. Could a ‘Ferrari’ F-35 Be One?
The War Zone: Gripen E Fighter Officially Joins the Swedish Air Force
Task & Purpose: A Pilot Went Down in Vietnam to Protect Secrets. Will He Get the Medal of Honor?
THE CALENDAR:
WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 22
11:30 a.m. — Washington Space Business Roundtable virtual discussion: “China, Space, and Geopolitics,” with Dean Cheng, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies senior fellow; Chris Williams, chair, National Security Space Association Center for Space Studies; and Christian Davenport, Washington Post reporter and author of Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos, and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race https://wsbr.org/event/china-space-and-geopolitics
1:30 p.m. — National Defense Industrial Association and MITRE virtual discussion: “AI for Requirements: Modernizing DOD Requirements Process,” with Arun Seraphin, executive director, Emerging Technologies Institute https://www.ndia.org/events/2025/10/22/ai-for-requirements
2 p.m. — Carnegie Endowment for International Peace virtual discussion: “Rethinking America North Korea Strategy,” with Joel Wit, Stimson Center fellow; Jean Lee, presidential chair at the East-West Center; and Aaron David Miller, CEIP senior fellow https://carnegieendowment.org/events/
2:30 p.m. 1333 H St. NW — Center for American Progress discussion: “A New Vision for American Foreign Policy ,” with Rep. Jason Crow (D-Co) https://www.americanprogress.org/events/a-new-vision-for-american-foreign-policy
3 p.m. 1400 L St. NW — Atlantic Council discussion: “Transatlantic Security and NATO’s Northeastern Flank,” with Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event/denmarks-defense-minister
3 p.m. — Axios Future of Defense Summit. https://axiosthefutureofdefensesummit2025interest.splashthat.com/
5 p.m. 1521 16th St. NW — Institute of World Politics discussion: “The War in Ukraine — An Update from the Front,” with Glenn Corn, IWP faculty member and former CIA senior executive https://www.iwp.edu/the-war-in-ukraine-an-update-from-the-front/
THURSDAY | OCTOBER 23
8 a.m. — Atlantic Council virtual seminar: “Countering the PRC Gray-Zone Strategies,” with Jay Tarriela, Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson; Ta-Chen Chen, Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology non-resident fellow; and Arielle Ann Nicole Lopez of the National Defense College of the Philippines Senior Defense Research Office https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event/countering-the-prcs-gray-zone-strategies
11 a.m. — Center for a New American Security virtual discussion on a new report: “Stuck in the Cul-de-Sac: How U.S. Defense Spending Prioritizes Innovation Over Deterrence,” with co-author Carlton Haelig, CNAS fellow; co-author Philip Sheers, CNAS research associate; Todd Harrison, American Enterprise Institute senior fellow; and Susanna Blume, CNAS senior fellow https://www.cnas.org/events/virtual-event-stuck-in-the-cul-de-sac
12 p.m. 37th and O Sts. NW — Georgetown University Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and Center for Contemporary Arab Studies discussion: “The Trump-Netanyahu Peace Plan for Gaza: A Critical Appraisal ,” with Diana Buttu, professor at Georgetown University Qatar https://events.georgetown.edu/sfs/event/33345-the-trump-netanyahu-peace-plan
2 p.m. — Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies virtual discussion: “Air Mobility ,” with Air Force Gen. John Lamontagne, commander, Air Mobility Command; and retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, dean, Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies https://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org/events/gen-john-lamontagne/
FRIDAY | OCTOBER 24
10 a.m. — National Institute for Deterrence Studies virtual seminar: “Russia’s Evolving Tactical and Theater Nuclear Posture ,” with Phillip Karber, professor of strategy and praxis at the National Defense University https://thinkdeterrence.com/events/russias-evolving-tactical-theater-nuclear-posture