ANCHORAGE— President Trump proclaimed Friday he and Russian President Vladimir Putin made “great progress” toward ending Moscow’s war on Ukraine after meeting for nearly three hours in Alaska — while cautioning “there’s no deal until there’s a deal.”
Trump, 79, and Putin, 72, didn’t publicly mention any details of a preliminary “understanding” toward ending the long-running war, with the US leader saying he would be calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and key European allies to discuss negotiations.
“There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them,” Trump said at a media availability where neither he nor Putin took any questions.
“I would say a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite got there, but we’ve made some headway,” he added. “So there’s no deal until there’s a deal. I will call up NATO in a little while, I will call up the various people that I think are appropriate, and, of course, call up President Zelensky and tell them about today’s meeting. It’s ultimately up to them.”
“Next time in Moscow,” Putin told Trump, who replied noncommittally, “I could see it possibly happening,” even though that venue would complicate reported US plans for a followup meeting with both Putin and Zelensky.
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Putin, like Trump, described the meeting as productive and claimed repeatedly that the men had made either an “agreement” or “agreements” without providing any details.
The strongman added that he hoped “today’s agreements will be the starting point not only for the solution of the Ukrainian issue, but also will help us bring back business-like and pragmatic relations between Russia and the US.”
“I would like to hope that the agreement that we’ve reached together will help us bring closer that goal and will pave the path towards peace in Ukraine,” Putin went on. “We expect that Kyiv and European capitals will perceive that constructively and that they won’t throw a wrench in the works.”
Hours earlier, Trump had said that anything short of an immediate cease-fire would be unsatisfactory.
“I want to see a cease-fire rapidly. I don’t know if it’s going to be today, but I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today,” Trump told a group of reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Alaska, which Russia colonized in the 1700s and sold to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million.
“Everyone said it can’t be today, but I’m just saying, I want the killing to stop. I’m in this to stop the killing.”
Trump said ahead of the meeting that he would not agree to affirm Russia’s conquest of Ukrainian land — leaving final decisions on concessions to Kyiv.
“I’ve got to let Ukraine make that decision,” Trump said. “I think they’ll make a proper decision. But I’m not here to negotiate for Ukraine. I’m here to get them at the table.”
Russia controls or partially controls five regions in southeastern Ukraine — Crimea, taken in 2014, and Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, all of which Russia moved to annex in 2022.
The president told Fox News host Bret Baier in an interview en route to the Last Frontier that he wasn’t sure how the talks would go with the former KGB agent, saying that “you don’t want to have too many expectations because you have to weave and bob.”
“I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of a cease-fire,” Trump reiterated.
“This is really setting the table today. We’re going to have another meeting if things work out,’ the president previewed. “Which would be very soon. Or we’re not going to have any more meetings at all — maybe ever.”
For nearly seven months since taking office, Trump has attempted to browbeat Putin and Zelensky into making a peace deal, and repeatedly framed the Anchorage meeting as an initial step — even while acknowledging Thursday he thought there was a 25% chance of failure in the talks.
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 and Trump floated ending the conflict with a single phone call while on the 2024 campaign trial — a promise he acknowledged this week was overly optimistic.
The summit was heavy on symbolism and imagery.
“Game on … it’s lovely to see you,” Trump greeted Putin following a handshake on the tarmac of Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, according to a translation by forensic lip reader Jeremy Freeman.
As Putin and Trump walked together down a red carpet, a B-2 stealth bomber flew overhead with an escort of four F-22 fighter jets.
Putin craned his head upward to look at the massive V-shaped bomber, which Trump used on June 22 to attack a key Iranian nuclear site after Tehran balked at his proposal for a bilateral deal.
The show of force was coupled with personal courtesy, with Trump inviting Putin to get into his own armored limousine, the Beast, for a short drive to the venue for their talks.
The Russian side also used unspoken communication. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov checked into his hotel Thursday evening wearing a sweatshirt with the letters “CCCP,” the Russian acronym for USSR, in an apparent nod to Russia’s formerly enlarged geographical span.
Putin, who last visited the US in 2015, traveled to the summit after laying flowers at a memorial to American-Soviet cooperation in World War II in the eastern Russian city of Magadan.
Trump was joined at the three-hour sit-down by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is considered a Russia hawk deeply skeptical of Putin, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has a good relationship with the dictator following private meetings.
In the past, Trump has spoken of using aides with well-known policy stances as leverage in international negotiations — frequently telling of how he found it strategic to include then-national security adviser John Bolton in meetings to spook adversaries due to his reputation as a “warmonger.”
Putin, too, seemed to consider the message sent by his entourage, arriving with a large number of business leaders in an attempt to replay Trump’s habit of trumpeting of foreign investments and expanded corporate ties, though Trump tasked the overture as premature, saying, “they’re not doing business until we get the war settled.”
The Trump-Putin summit occurred 80 years to the day after the initial announcement of Japan’s surrender to the Allies in World War II — and exactly four years after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, which Trump has said demonstrated US weakness to such an extent that it inspired Putin to attack Ukraine six months later.
The US has bankrolled Kyiv’s defense against Russia with nearly $200 billion in congressionally authorized funds, beginning under then-President Joe Biden, whom Putin, echoing Trump’s public remarks, blamed for starting the war.
“I tried to convince my previous American colleague that the situation should not be brought to the point of no return when it would come to hostilities,” Putin attacked Biden.
“Today when President Trump said that if he was the president back then, there would be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be. So I can confirm that.”
