Trump calls the summit with “productive” Putin, but does not announce the ceasefire of Ukraine

Anchorage, Alaska – President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged from a meeting of almost three hours on the war of Ukraine and brought a cordial tone in brief public declarations, but left without announcing a cease-fire or a peace agreement.

“There is no agreement as long as there is no agreement,” said Trump.

The White House had declared that there would be a press conference after the meeting on camera, but the two men went out outside the stage after 12 minutes without responding to the dozens of American and Russian reporters present.

Trump organized the summit in a military base in Alaska in a daring attempt to negotiate a peace agreement and stop Russia at three years War with Ukraine And its ever -increasing number of bodies. It was not immediately clear what was agreed in talks. Trump said the two parties had made “great progress”, but had offered no specificity.

“We did not get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there,” said Trump.

In Putin, he said, “We will probably see you again very soon.”

“Next time in Moscow,” replied Putin.

Trump seemed dynamic at the start of the summit, deflated at the end.

He met Putin on the Tarmac of the joint base Elmendorf-Richardson, applauding the approach of his Russian counterpart. The leaders warmly gushed their hands then walked side by side along a red carpet to Trump’s limousine for the short trip by car to the closed -door meeting. They went up alone without help. In a military fulfillment, a B-2 bomber and a quartet of F-35 jets participated in an overview marking the start of the summit.

A few hours later, Trump seemed moderate and without smiling by taking the scene for the joint appearance. He got up, it seemed like, when Putin said that war with Ukraine would not have arrived if Trump had been in office. Trump often makes the same point, blaming former President Joe Biden for hostilities. He nodded and looked at Putin when the Russian chief saved his complaint.

Follow the live updates.

Trump was joined at the summit meeting by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and an American special envoy, Steve Witkoff – a gap compared to what was initially described as one between the two leaders.

Putin was accompanied at the meeting by two Russian officials, aid to foreign affairs Yuri Ushakov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov. Before the summit, Lavrov was spotted in Alaska with a shirt with the “CCCP” Cyrillic letters, a cheeky reference to the USSR. Before declaring its independence in 1991, Ukraine was part of the former Soviet Empire.

Trump has passed the prospect of the summit to temper expectations, throwing rest as a prelude to a meeting not yet unmhed that would include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“I want to see a ceasefire quickly,” Trump told journalists aboard the Air Force One Friday on the way to Alaska. “I don’t know if it’s going to be it today, but I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today. Everyone said it couldn’t be today, but I just say that I want murder to stop.”

Normally optimistic about his negotiation skills, Trump said Fox News Radio earlier in the week that the chances are 1 in 4 that his Assiet with Putin would be a failure. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, compared the summit to a “listening exercise” since Zelenskyy would not be present.

“The president is realistic that it is probably a process in several stages and he is ready and positive about this stage forward,” a senior Trump administration at NBC News said on Friday when he asked him questions about the president’s state of mind.

However, the face -to -face meeting between the two leaders was as one of the rare moments full of hope in a grinding conflict that started in February 2022 when Russia sent tanks that cross the border in Ukraine in order to swallow its democratic neighbor.

Trump said Thursday that he would call Zelenskyy to discuss the outcome of his meeting with Putin if it was “good”. We do not know if this call happened.

Trump pushed the two nations to end the fights while he was doing a Increasingly public campaign To win the Nobel Peace Prize.

But if the bombing continues and Russia grabs more Ukrainian territory, Trump will have risked giving legitimacy to a Russian leader who has become an international pariah.

“My concern is that the photo session in itself legitimate essentially war crimes, telegraphs to other autocrats or bad men from the whole world that they can get away with murdered civilians and always obtain a photo session with the President of the United States,” said Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Which is at the Foreign Relations Committee, according to “Morning Joe”. “”.

Russia’s first attempt to conquer Ukraine has flouted and the conflict has since been transformed into an attrition war, with victims totaling About 1.5 million. Currently, Putin is holding a light edge on the battlefield.

Although nothing was announced on Friday, Trump still has a considerable lever effect on the two fighters. If he chooses, he could slap more rigid sanctions On countries like India that buy oil from Russia. Or he could remember money and military equipment that needed Ukraine in the fight against his greatest opponent. For these only reasons, countries at war must take the insistence of Trump seriously at the end of the conflict.

“Putin is clearly in a lower position,” said William Taylor, who was an American ambassador to Ukraine under the presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in an interview. “This invasion of Ukraine turned out to be a disaster for him. Trump has the cards this time.”

The location of the summit was itself rich in symbolism. On the one hand, the International Criminal Court issued An arrest warrant For Putin resulting from his conduct in the war, which means that he could have been apprehended if the site had been in a multitude of other nations. (The United States is not signatories of the Court.)

In addition, Alaska belonged to the country of Putin, a fact that Russian commentators and the political elite had seized as a positive signal for talks. The United States bought the territory in 1867 for $ 7.2 million, an acquisition which, ironically, strengthened the American military position on the edge of the Pacific in a rivalry with Russia which has wax And discouraged for decades.

“Putin agreed to come to Trump, to come to America,” said Robert O’Brien, National House -House Advisor to Trump’s first term, in an interview. “It is essential because Alaska is a former Russian colony and Putin’s policy consists in recovering what he believes to be the former territory of the Russian Empire. Putin wants the territory of Russia and yet he comes in a place which was a former Russian colony to meet the President of the United States – when he has no chance of recovering Alaska.”

A secondary intrigue of Reunion was personal chemistry between the American and Russian presidents. Trump took office in 2017 wanting a good relationship with Putin, who has become a pariah in his long years assault on the sovereignty of Ukraine. Upon his return to the White House in January, Trump at some point suggested that he had a certain kinship with Putin in surveys on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race.

“Let me tell you that Putin has gone through a lot with me,” said Trump at a television meeting with Zelenskyy in the Oval office in February. Friday, when he appeared with Putin, he again referred to the “hoax” of Russia.

Recently, Trump has irritation expressed with Putin On continuous Russian attacks against Ukraine. Although Putin seemed to be accommodating during telephone calls, Russia said Russia has not dropped its military assault.

“We get a lot of bulls — We launched by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” said Trump last month. “He is very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

As a candidate in 2024, Trump was convinced that he could end the war quickly. This early optimism has given way to elegant recognition than the problem is more difficult than it had planned.

A central discord is the land. Zelenskyy insisted last week that Ukraine would not give in the territory to Russia.

“The Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier”, ” He said.

Trump suggested that some mutuals “exchange “ Territories would be part of a ceasefire. In his remarks Friday on Air Force One, he said that he would discuss the divisions of the territory during his meeting with Putin, although he added: “I must let Ukraine make this decision.”

In a job On Friday morning, Zelenskyy wrote in English: “The main thing is that this meeting should open a real way to just peace and substantial discussion between leaders in a trilateral format – Ukraine, the United States and the Russian side. It is time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia.

Trump had to have lunch with Putin and a number of senior American officials, but after the talks, the two presidents went directly to the joint appearance.

Formerly a television show, Trump seemed to be well aware of the drama and the plot surrounding a summit that drew global attention.

“High stakes !!!” He wrote in All-Caps on his social platform of truth before leaving for Alaska.

At the end of the day, the issues remained high, but a breakthrough seemed all the more elusive.