Summit ends without a ceasefire in Ukraine ‘We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance,’ Trump says of his meeting with Putin in Alaska
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met today in Alaska. The venue was Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a large U.S. military base outside Anchorage. Their meeting lasted roughly two and a half hours and was followed by a brief joint press conference. The two leaders reached no major agreement.
🇷🇺 The Russian delegation accompanying President Putin consists of five key figures: senior presidential adviser and veteran diplomatic strategist Yuri Ushakov; Defense Minister Andrey Belousov; Finance Minister Anton Siluanov; Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a special presidential representative; and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
🇺🇸 The American delegation accompanying President Trump includes Special Envoy to the Middle East Steven Witkoff, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
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For those who don’t want to read all of today’s updates, here’s a summary.
‘There’s no deal until there’s a deal’ After meeting for nearly three hours in Alaska, Trump and Putin have little to show
‘There’s no deal until there’s a deal’ After meeting for nearly three hours in Alaska, Trump and Putin have little to show
Donald Trump has also boarded his plane and is preparing to leave Alaska. The summit between the two presidents has ended. And with that, so is Meduza’s live coverage of this event.
Putin hightails it home
Vladimir Putin boards his plane to leave Alaska and return to Russia.
War in Ukraine continues during Alaska summit
Throughout the day, as Putin and Trump shook hands and discussed being neighbors, many eastern Ukrainian regions were under air raid alerts, and governors of Russia’s Rostov and Bryansk regions reported that some of their territories were under Ukrainian drone attacks, Reuters reports. A Russian ballistic missile launched into the Dnipropetrovsk region killed at least one person and wounded at least one other.
Today didn’t go as planned
- Instead of a one-on-one conversation, it was a “three-on-three” meeting.
- Instead of “six or seven hours,” it lasted less than three.
- There was no lunch, nor was there an expanded “five-on-five” meeting.
- At the post-summit press conference, journalists weren’t allowed to ask any questions.
But Trump did give Putin a ride in his limousine, “the Beast.”
Zelensky still waiting on Trump’s phone call
Two sources close to the Zelensky administration tell The Financial Times that President Trump has yet to telephone his Ukrainian counterpart to discuss today’s meeting with Putin. One source called it “very weird,” while another described it as “a nothingburger.”
Before leaving for Fort Richardson National Cemetery, Putin had a final exchange with President Trump.
Following his press conference with Trump, Vladimir Putin left Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and laid flowers at the graves of Soviet pilots buried at Fort Richardson National Cemetery outside Anchorage.
President Trump’s key remarks
“I believe we had a very productive meeting. […] 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 I’ll, of course, call up President Zelensky and tell him about today’s meeting. It’s ultimately up to them. They’re going to have to agree… […] 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.”
“Next time in Moscow”
The most noteworthy moment of the press conference was when Vladimir Putin invited Donald Trump to meet in Moscow for their next summit. The U.S. president seemed genuinely surprised and expressed concern that he would be criticized in the United States for such a trip, but he left the possibility of such a meeting open.
Well, that happened
Despite the warm sentiments expressed by both leaders, the public has received no details about the negotiations and agreements reached during today’s meeting in Alaska. It is unclear what further clarifications will be provided.
The press conference is over. The presidents did not take questions from journalists.
“Next time in Moscow,” Putin told Trump in English after the U.S. president delivered brief remarks to the press.
Vladimir Putin supports Trump’s claim that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine wouldn’t have happened if Biden weren’t president in 2022
Putin: It’s time for our countries to return to cooperation. I would like to thank Trump for the cordial tone of the conversation. There was a focus on results from both sides.
Trump knows what he wants to achieve, but understands Russia’s national interests. I recall that in 2022, I attempted to persuade President Biden that there was no need to escalate a situation to the point where military action would follow. This was a big mistake.
Today, we hear Trump saying that if he had been president, there would have been no war. I confirm this.
Putin: I agree with President Trump that Ukraine’s security must be ensured unconditionally, and we are ready to work on this. One would like to believe that the understanding reached will pave the way for peace in Ukraine. We hope that in Kyiv and Europe, they will not try to derail the emerging progress.
Putin: We see President Trump’s desire to get to the bottom of the conflict in Ukraine. We have always considered and continue to consider the Ukrainian people to be our brothers, however strange that may sound under today’s circumstances. Our country is sincerely interested in putting an end to this. However, we are convinced that for a settlement to be sustainable, all root causes must be addressed and eliminated.
Putin is the first to speak. He says he greeted Trump as a neighbor when they met on the tarmac. He then explains the geographic proximity and historical ties between Russia and the U.S., calling on Moscow and Washington to rebuild their relationship.
The Putin–Trump joint press conference has begun.
Russia and U.S. could restore aviation links
Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Alexander Darchiev tells the news agency TASS that the atmosphere around the negotiations is “positive,” and that Russia has prepared documents for restoring direct flights with the United States.
You can watch the joint press conference here at The White House’s official YouTube channel.
Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, seated in the front row for the imminent joint press conference, tells TASS news agency that he’s in an “excellent mood” following the meeting between Putin and Trump.
Hillary Clinton weighs in
In an interview with the “Raging Moderates” podcast, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would nominate President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize if he could broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine that did not “capitulate” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Clinton said the terms of a peace deal need to include a “cease-fire,” “no exchange of territory,” and “that over a period of time, Putin should be actually withdrawing from the territory he seized.”
Asked about Clinton’s remarks, Trump told journalist Bret Baier, “That was very nice. I may have to start liking her again.”
Trump’s post-summit plans
Several hours ago, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity announced that he would conduct a “post-summit interview” with President Trump at 9 p.m., U.S. Eastern Time — three hours from the time of this writing. Meanwhile, in Alaska, Trump and President Putin have reportedly yet to begin their working lunch.
Journalists have obtained a copy of the menu for today’s working lunch. (It does not contain Chicken Kiev, though Russian journalists were reportedly served this dish en route to Alaska.)
The expanded delegation meeting hasn’t started yet
Ten minutes ago, a White House official informed the press that the three-on-three meeting is still ongoing (after 90 minutes), and the working lunch with the expanded delegation has not yet begun.
Dangling oil and gas opportunity
Earlier today, President Putin issued an executive order that could allow foreign investors, including Exxon Mobil, to regain shares in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project. Reuters was the first to report the new Russian decree, which stipulates that foreign shareholders must take actions to support the lifting of Western sanctions in order to regain their shares. Exxon previously held a 30-percent operator share in the Sakhalin project and is the only non-Russian investor to have divested its stake, taking an impairment charge of $4.6 billion to exit its Russian business after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Ahead of Friday’s summit in Alaska, Russian officials have repeatedly expressed hopes for renewed economic ties with the United States.
Expanded delegation talks still to come
The newspaper Kommersant reports that Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov will join today’s negotiations when the ongoing three-on-three talks expand to the full U.S. and Russian delegations.
Old friends on the tarmac
CNN reports that the warplanes lined up where Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin greeted each other today are F-22 Raptors — “the same type of fighter jets that routinely intercept Russian aircraft operating off the coast of Alaska.” The last publicly known sighting of Russian military aircraft operating in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (which is technically international airspace) was on July 22, NORAD said in a news release.
60-minute update
Putin and Trump, along with two senior officials from each side, have been meeting in a closed-door setting for more than an hour now. So far, journalists have received no hints about how the negotiations are progressing or when they will conclude.