0645GMT//Putin and Trump to meet in Budapest; India starts buying oil from South America; Assassination plot in France foiled
TRUMP-PUTIN MEETING: Donald Trump will meet with Vladimir Putin in Budapest "next week". The two leaders held a two-hour telephone conversation on Thursday to discuss the war in Ukraine, which both said was "good and productive". In the phone call, their first for two months, Putin tried to persuade Trump to drop a plan to give Ukraine long-distance Tomahawk missiles. Reports said that Putin initiated the telephone conversation and started by congratulating Trump on his peace deal for Gaza. (COMMENT: This is a step forward for peace in Ukraine. The Kremlin sees direct negotiations with the US, not Ukraine, as critical for achieving peace. The Kremlin's timing was important too. Putin was able to flatter Trump over his peace deal in the Middle East and set the agenda before Volodymyr Zelensky arrives in the US for talks with Trump today.)
BUDAPEST AS THE VENUE: The choice of Budapest as a venue for the Trump-Putin talks is not a coincidence. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has kept open diplomatic and trade channels with Russia throughout the war, an outlier alongside Slovakia in the EU. He has also been critical of Ukraine. (COMMENT: In other words, this feels like a "reward" for Orban for retaining ties with Russia.)
HOW WILL PUTIN TRAVEL TO BUDAPEST: Speculation has already begun over how Putin would travel to Hungary for talks with Trump. This will be his first trip to the EU since the start of the war in Ukraine, and he will have to fly over Poland or other EU states that are hostile. (COMMENT: Poland and other EU states are also members of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has an arrest warrant out for Putin. Theoretically, anyway, their fighter jets could force down Putin's plane to arrest him. Hungary withdrew from the ICC earlier this year.)
RUSSIAN MISSILE STRIKE: Russia launched a massive overnight strike against Ukraine's energy infrastructure using 320 drones and 37 missiles. Russian opposition news agencies said that 28 of the 37 missiles fired by Russia at Ukraine were ballistic missiles and that none were shot down. (COMMENT: The FT has previously reported that Russia has adapted the trajectory and flight of its ballistic missiles to evade Ukrainian Patriot missile air defence systems.)
INDIAN OIL PURCHASES: Two large Indian oil refineries have bought crude oil from ExxonMobil operations in Guyana for the first time, Reuters news agency reported. The purchase came the day after Trump said that Indian PM Narendra Modi had promised him that India would quit buying Russian oil. (COMMENT: The Indian oil deal with ExxonMobil appears to validate Trump's statement that India had finally ditched Russian oil. India had become the largest buyer of Russian crude oil since the war in Ukraine started. At the end of August, the US imposed extra tariffs on India for buying Russian crude oil.)
INTEREST RATES: Economists are divided on whether the Russian Central Bank will cut interest rates for the fourth time this year at its next meeting on Oct. 24, according to a poll in the Vedomosti newspaper. It reported that 10 of the 22 economists polled said that the Central Bank will keep rates at 17%. The other 12 economists expected a rate cut to 16.5% or 16%. (COMMENT: Russian business is pressuring the Central Bank to cut interest rates, but the Kremlin is more cautious. It is concerned about inflation and the value of the rouble. A rise in VAT to 22% from 20% on Jan. 1 will also push up inflation in Russia.)
ASSASSINATION PLOT IN FRANCE: France arrested four people on Thursday for plotting to murder a Russian dissident. French newspapers said that Vladimir Osechkin, who runs the gulagu.net website that reports on abuse in Russian prisons, was the target. Newspapers said that some of the men arrested were Russian nationals. (COMMENT: Osechkin and his website have been under police protection since he received death threats in 2022. He has published videos of alleged rapes in Russian prisons.)