With fighter jets, a red carpet and a hopeful slogan — “Pursuing Peace” — plastered on the wall, President Donald Trump welcomed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for a summit in Alaska on Friday whose results remained entirely unclear once it abruptly ended.
After meeting for nearly three hours, the two men emerged to proclaim progress. But they exited their scheduled news conference without explaining what, exactly, they have achieved.
One thing that was evident: There was no deal made. And the ceasefire Trump said he wanted in place when the summit ended was far from becoming a reality as he increasingly put the onus on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “make a deal.”
“There were many, many points that we agreed on – most of them, I would say,” Trump said at the news conference, speaking after Putin. “A couple of big ones that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway.”
“There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Trump pronounced.
He and Putin departed the stage without answering questions.
It was an inconclusive end to a showy summit that — for all its unknowns — did seem to decisively welcome Putin back into the diplomatic fold.
Still, for all of the pomp and protocol, the indications of how difficult Trump’s task will be were evident from the moment the meeting began.
Emergency services workers extinguish a fire, causeed by the explosion of a Russian drone, at the central market in Sumy, Ukraine, earlier in the day on Friday. Francisco Richart Barbeira/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Just as the presidents were greeting each other on the Elmendorf Air Force Base tarmac, alerts went out in Ukraine about incoming Russian drones and aircraft — a sign of Putin’s intent to keep up his war, even as Trump was lavishing him with trappings of respect on US soil.
Here are key takeaways from Friday’s summit in Anchorage:
Progress but not a deal
Both Trump and Putin offered a vague accounting of a meeting that stretched for hours.
“We had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to,” Trump told reporters. “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.”
In an interview immediately after the summit, Trump was asked by Fox News’ Sean Hannity about territorial concessions that would give Russia land it didn’t previously have and about potential US security assurances for Ukraine.
“Well, I think those are points that we negotiated, and those are points that we largely have agreed on,” Trump said without elaborating.
He stressed that Ukraine “has to agree to it.” Asked what his advice was for Zelensky, Trump responded: “Gotta make a deal.”
In the lead-up to the talks, it was always clearer what an unsuccessful outcome would look like than a successful one. Trump had vowed to “walk” if he didn’t like what Putin was saying, threatened to downgrade the joint news conference to a solo appearance and said “severe” consequences would come for Moscow if the war didn’t end.
But as he flew to Anchorage, Trump said he didn’t know what success would look like — suggesting he would recognize it when he saw it.
It turns out, success was just as hard to identify after the summit as it was when it began.
Trump says he’ll be at potential Putin-Zelensky meeting
In his Fox interview, Trump said both Putin and Zelensky want him at a potential second meeting — which he had said before the summit would be his ultimate objective.
“They both want me there, and I’ll be there,” he told Hannity.
Trump said nothing about the prospect of a trilateral meeting at the news conference, only indicating he would get on the telephone with “the various people that I think are appropriate” — including Zelensky — to update them on the talks.
But the only forthcoming meeting mentioned during Trump and Putin’s joint appearance was a potential follow-up with the Russian leader.
“We’ll speak to you very soon, and probably see you again very soon,” Trump said.
“Next time in Moscow,” Putin responded in English — a suggestion that would appear to exclude Zelensky from the discussion.
Putin back in from the cold
Soon after his arrival in the US, Putin’s grin as he peered out the window of Trump’s limousine said everything: after years of western isolation, he was back in the most powerful nation on earth.
It had been 10 years since Putin was last in America and several more since he was welcomed to the country for a major presidential summit. After he invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Russian leader was made a pariah by many leaders, unwelcome in most western nations and even threatened with an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. (Alaska was a desirable location for the summit, in part, because the US is not a member of the ICC.)
But Putin’s isolation ended when his plane landed in Anchorage. With a red carpet welcome, a flyover of fighter jets and a round of applause from the US president himself, the message from Trump was clear: Putin was back in from the cold. Their smiling greeting was hailed on Russian state television as a “historic handshake.”
Though Putin is still not welcome in many places in Europe, the decision to host him by Trump — who oversees the world’s largest economy and its most powerful military — does more to erode attempts at diplomatic shunning than any other leader could attempt.
That became clearer when Putin climbed into Trump’s armored vehicle, an unusual gesture that seemed to capture in an instant the Russian leader’s return to global diplomacy. Even without any major progress, it was, for him, a victory.
Aides were added to what had been billed as a one-on-one
The surprise came just as Trump was landing: No longer would he be meeting Putin one-on-one, with only their translators present. Instead, two aides would join each leader for their bilateral talks.
That was different from earlier in the week, when the White House said the summit would include a one-on-one component. A US official said it was a late change but offered no explanation for why the format shifted.
Trump’s one-on-one meetings with Putin during his first term were shrouded in a degree of mystery. With only a translator inside the room, it was often unclear what exactly was discussed. Aides sometimes had a difficult time ascertaining if the two men reached any agreements. After one such meeting, in Germany, Trump asked his interpreter to discard his notes.
The addition of two aides to Friday’s session — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US special envoy Steve Witkoff — could allow for greater clarity in the coming days, particularly if Russia offers an accounting of events that differs from the US perspective.
Still, there was one moment that only Trump and Putin will be able to recount: their brief ride in the presidential limousine from the tarmac to the room where the meeting took place. No one else was in the car with them except Secret Service agents — no advisers or even translators.
That leaves the contents of their brief chat known only to them.
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