Caribbean Crisis 2.0: Inside the cancellation of the Putin–Trump summit

In world history, the Caribbean Crisis – or the Cuban Missile Crisis – refers to the tense October of 1962, when the US and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war. The confrontation began with the deployment of American missiles in Türkiye, along the Soviet Union’s southern border, and Moscow’s subsequent decision to place nuclear warheads in Cuba, just off Florida’s coast.

Through intense diplomacy between October 16 and 28, both sides agreed to withdraw their weapons, set up a direct hotline between Washington and Moscow, and lay the groundwork for future arms control deals. During those thirteen days, the air was thick with fear, yet the true scope of negotiations remained hidden from the world until long after the danger had passed.

In a striking twist of fate, sixty-three years later – in October 2025 – relations between Russia and the US have taken a hauntingly similar turn. On October 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump held their eighth and longest phone call of the year. The key outcome was an agreement to prepare a high-level meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to set the parameters for a summit between the two presidents, planned for Budapest, Hungary.

While historians will later unpack the full picture, we can already draw some conclusions from open sources. Notably, the “breaking news” about the upcoming summit came after weeks of heated media coverage of the military-political standoff between Moscow and Washington – and a new wave of debate on arms control.

The diplomacy unravels

Relations between the two nuclear powers have been sliding toward open confrontation since the Anchorage summit on August 15, 2025. That meeting, meant to ease tensions, instead became a flashpoint.