Alaska: US President Donald Trump said that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not reach an agreement to resolve Moscow’s war in Ukraine after a nearly three-hour summit in Alaska, though he characterised the meeting as “very productive.”
“There were many, many points that we agreed on,” Trump said at a joint press conference with Putin. “I would say a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite got there, but we’ve made some headway. So there’s no deal until there’s a deal.”
Trump said that he and Putin did not reach an agreement on “probably the most significant” aspect of their meeting, but there was a very good chance of getting there.
“Many points were agreed to. There are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there. We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there,” Trump told reporters.
Earlier, speaking to the press, Putin said he hoped that agreements reached at his summit with the US president could be a launchpad for settling the Ukraine conflict and restoring ties between Russia and the US.
“I expect that today’s agreements will become a reference point, not only for solving the Ukrainian problem, but will also launch the restoration of business-like, pragmatic relations between Russia and the United States,” Putin said.
He said there was enormous potential for the two countries to build a business and investment partnership in areas such as energy, technology and space exploration, and in the Arctic.
“I have every reason to believe that by moving along this path, we can reach an end to the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible,” he said at a joint news conference at which the leaders did not take any questions.
The Russian president also said he expected Ukraine and its European allies to accept the results of the US-Russia negotiation, warning them not to “torpedo” the progress toward a resolution.
Putin, however, did not specify what the two sides had agreed on, but he did say that his next meeting with the US president could take place in Moscow.
“Next time in Moscow,” Putin said in English, responding to Trump after the two leaders met in Alaska for a summit.
Putin also repeated Moscow’s long-held position that what Russia claims to be the “root causes” of the conflict must be eliminated to reach a long-term peace, a sign he remains resistant to a ceasefire.
As the two leaders were talking, the war raged on, with most eastern Ukrainian regions under air raid alerts. Governors of Russia’s Rostov and Bryansk regions reported that some of their territories were under Ukrainian drone attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has ruled out formally handing Moscow any territory and is also seeking a security guarantee backed by the United States. Trump said he would call Zelenskiy and NATO leaders to update them on the Alaska talks.
There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv to the summit. Ukraine’s opposition lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said on the Telegram messaging app, “It seems Putin has bought himself more time. No ceasefire or de-escalation has been agreed upon.”
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said in a statement that he welcomed Trump’s efforts but doubted Putin’s interest in a deal.
“If Putin were serious about negotiating peace, he would not have been attacking Ukraine all day today,” he said.
It was not clear whether the talks had produced meaningful steps toward a ceasefire in the deadliest conflict in Europe in 80 years, a goal that Trump had set at the outset.
Red carpet
The anticlimactic end to the closely watched summit was in stark contrast to the pomp and circumstance with which it began.
When Putin arrived at an Air Force base in Alaska, a red carpet awaited him, where Trump greeted Putin warmly as US military aircraft flew overhead.
For Putin, the summit – the first between him and a US president since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – was already a big win, regardless of its outcome. He can portray the meeting as evidence that years of Western attempts to isolate Russia have unravelled and that Moscow is retaking its rightful place at the high table of international diplomacy.
Trump hopes a truce in the 3-1/2-year-old war that Putin started will bring peace to the region as well as bolster his credentials as a global peacemaker worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court, accused of the war crime of deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia denies the allegations, and the Kremlin has dismissed the ICC warrant as null and void. Russia and the United States are not members of the court.
Both Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians in the war. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority Ukrainian, and the war has killed or injured well over a million people from both sides.
No ceasefire
Trump and Putin, along with top foreign-policy aides, conferred in a room at an Air Force base in Anchorage, Alaska in their first meeting since 2019.
Trump’s publicly stated aim for the talks was to secure a halt to the fighting and a commitment by Putin to meet swiftly with Ukrainian Zelensky to negotiate an end to the war, which began when Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022.
Zelensky, who was not invited to the summit, and his European allies had feared Trump might sell out Ukraine by essentially freezing the conflict and recognising – if only informally – Russian control over one-fifth of Ukraine.
Trump sought to assuage such concerns as he boarded Air Force One, saying he would let Ukraine decide on any possible territorial concessions.
“I’m not here to negotiate for Ukraine, I’m here to get them at a table,” he said.
Asked what would make the meeting a success, he told reporters: “I want to see a ceasefire rapidly … I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today … I want the killing to stop.”
Zelensky has ruled out formally handing Moscow any territory and is also seeking a security guarantee backed by the United States.
Trump said he would call Zelensky and NATO leaders to update them on the talks with Putin.
The meeting also included US Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Trump’s special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff; Russian foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov; and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Trump, who once said he would end Russia’s war in Ukraine within 24 hours, conceded on Thursday it had proven a tougher task than he had expected. He said if Friday’s talks went well, quickly arranging a second, three-way summit with Zelensky would be more important than his encounter with Putin.
Zelensky said Friday’s summit should open the way for a “just peace” and three-way talks that included him, but added that Russia was continuing to wage war. A Russian ballistic missile earlier struck Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one person and wounding another.
“It’s time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America,” Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
