Trump-Putin Alaska talks friendly but without Ukraine deal – DW – 08/16/2025
Donald Trump loves to talk, especially about his supposed successes as a skilled negotiator and shrewd statesman. This time in Alaska, things were different.
By his standards, the "deal-maker in chief" kept his appearance before the gathered press remarkably short, lasting only four minutes.
After his three-hour meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at a US military base near Anchorage, Trump said only that they had had an "extremely productive meeting."
They had agreed on many things, he said, with only "one big thing" remaining.
"We haven't done that yet. But there is a very good chance that we will get that done too," Trump said in an effort to sound friendly. The US president did not elaborate further.
In fact, Trump made no mention of Ukraine by name. Only once did he refer to Russia's war of aggression. "We will end the deaths of five thousand people a week. President Putin wants that too," he said.
Trump also failed to mention that Putin, a former KGB spy, could achieve this goal immediately if he stopped the attacks on Ukraine.
The guest from Moscow remained extremely polite and calm. Without batting an eyelid, he suggested that the "situation" in Ukraine was about Russia's security.
It may sound strange under the current circumstances, Putin said, but everything that is being done to the "brotherly people of Ukraine is a tragedy for us, a terrible wound. That is why our country is seriously interested in putting an end to it."
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Putin gave the impression that Russia was under threat and had to respond to "provocations."
This is a reversal of the facts, which he presumably also presented to Donald Trump during their talks in Alaska.
Many observers who closely follow the mood swings and erratic pronouncements of the 79-year-old US president believe that Trump picks up on and repeats whatever he last heard.
The question is, therefore, how far the Russian narrative will catch on.
Last Wednesday, it still seemed as if the US president was on the side of Ukraine, which is under attack.
According to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Donald Trump had "largely" agreed with the West's demands on Russia.
Merz had organized a virtual preparatory summit from Berlin and formulated five points for the negotiations in Alaska.
These included the demand that Ukraine alone should decide on its territory and the conditions for a ceasefire.
Trump did mention this demand in his brief statement. He said that in the end, "they" would have to decide, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the leaders of the major NATO countries.
Trump announced that he would call them immediately to inform them about the talks.
It is unclear whether he will be able to announce any concrete agreements with Russia during these phone calls.
On his way back to Washington, Trump told reporters that it was now up to Zelenskyy to reach an agreement with Moscow.
After the meeting, Donald Trump told reporters he had a "fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir." Before the meeting, he had described the Russian leader as a "smart guy."
A few weeks ago, however, he also said that Putin talks a lot of nonsense and does not keep his promises, but instead intensifies his attacks on Ukraine after each of their phone calls.
However, during personal meetings with the Russian leader, Trump always seems to hold back.
No criticism, not even subtle, was heard from Donald Trump's mouth. He is of course far less restrained with other state guests.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Trump followed Putin's eight minutes of remarks and excursions into Russian-American history at the joint press conference with a kind of frozen smile.
He had already displayed the same expression in Helsinki in 2018. At that time, the two men came together for their first long summit meeting.
Trump talked himself into a corner and went so far as to say that he trusted the man from the Kremlin more than his own intelligence services.
Putin was not stingy with pleasantries in his remarks, praising the great prospects for cooperation between the US and Russia and politely thanking the Trump administration for its efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine.
However, he immediately added that the "roots of the conflict" must be eliminated. By this he meant Ukraine's ties to the West, the membership of Eastern European countries in NATO, and NATO troops on its eastern flank.
The bottom line is that few concrete results were made public. There was no mention whatsoever of a ceasefire or steps toward one.
Donald Trump had announced that if the Alaska summit was successful, there would be a trilateral meeting between him, Putin and the Ukrainian president.
But there was no mention of that following the talks. "We may see each other again soon," the US president said vaguely.
The Russian leader then invited the perplexed Trump to Moscow in English. "That could possibly happen," Trump said, even if he would face some criticism for it.
If Moscow were the next venue for talks it would make it almost impossible for Volodymyr Zelenskyy to attend.
Before the summit, Trump had threatened Russia with "severe consequences" if Putin did not move toward a ceasefire.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Whether these consequences will now follow — meaning new, harsh economic sanctions against Russia's business partners, such as India and China — remains unclear.
However, the US president hinted that "after what happened today, higher tariffs against China are unlikely." Unfortunately, he did not elaborate on what had actually happened.
However, Trump is likely to be in a hurry to continue talks and efforts to bring peace to Ukraine. After all, the Nobel Committee will decide who will receive the Nobel Peace Prize at the beginning of October, in two months' time.
Trump is desperate to win it. He made no secret of this in a recent telephone conversation with Norwegian Finance Minister and former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, according to Norwegian media reports.
The Nobel Peace Prize is traditionally awarded in early December in the Norwegian capital Oslo. Trump has already been nominated several times.
Even his former rival in the presidential election campaign, Democrat Hillary Clinton, said she would support him. But only if he achieves a "just peace for Ukraine."
After the summit in Alaska, Trump still has a long way to go to achieve that.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
DW
2 hours ago
- DW
For Ukraine, the Alaska summit was a complete disappointment – DW – 08/16/2025
A red carpet for Vladimir Putin and no results for Ukraine. The Alaska summit, which many had pinned high hopes on, turned out to be a complete disappointment from the perspective of many Ukrainians. During Saturday night, many Ukrainians stayed up and anxiously waited for news from the Alaska summit between US President Donald Trump and Russia's head of state Vladimir Putin. For some, there was hope the talks could lead to some sort of end of Russia's war against Ukraine. Many Ukrainians though feared the price for this might be territorial concessions Kyiv would be pressured into making. But it soon became clear that the summit in Alaska had brought no fundamental changes. "There were no concrete results for Ukraine," Oleksandr Kraiev of the Ukrainian Prism think tank told DW. "Thank God nothing was signed and no radical decisions were made," the North America expert said. "The summit was an extremely successful information operation for Russia. The war criminal Putin came to the US and shook hands with the leader of the free world." According to Kraiev, apart from "Trump's deference toward Putin, there were no final answers to the most important questions." He believes that Putin dealt with Trump "with surgical precision" and told him everything Trump wanted to hear. This way, Putin got everything he wanted out of the summit. According to Ivan Us from Ukraine's Center for Foreign Policy of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, the Russian president never wanted the summit to lead to an end to the war. Instead, Putin's goal was to legitimize himself and end his international isolation. "For Putin, having a joint photo with Trump was the goal of this summit. To show in Russia that the isolation is over, that there won't be new sanctions, and that everything is fine, so that there'd be positive impulses for the markets. And for Trump, it was a moment where he wanted to demonstrate strength. He was walking next to Putin while a US bomber flew above them, the same bomber that recently attacked Iran. This was a signal to everyone not to forget who the most important country in the world is," Us told DW. As if to confirm this, Dmitry Medvedev, chairman of Russia's Security Council, said after the Alaska summit that a "full-fledged mechanism for meetings" between Russia and the US at the highest level had been restored. "Important: The meeting proved that negotiations without preconditions and simultaneously with the continuation of the Special Military Operation are possible. Both sides directly put the responsibility for future negotiation results on Kyiv and Europe," Medvedev wrote on social networks. The term Special Military Operation is how Russia refers to its war against Ukraine. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Ivan Us thinks that the summit did not get Ukraine closer to peace. Instead, it intensified the chaos, as the US and Russia are making contradictory statements about continuing possible trilateral dialogue involving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. For example, Moscow says that Trump and Putin did not discuss a trilateral summit with Zelensky, while Washington says the opposite. Zelenskyy himself spoke of receiving an invitation to a trilateral meeting. "We support President Trump's proposal for a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the US, and Russia. Ukraine emphasizes: Important issues can be discussed at the level of heads of state, and a trilateral format is suitable for this," he wrote on social media after a phone call with Donald Trump. Zelenskyy shared that he would meet with Donald Trump in Washington on August 18. "Ukraine confirms once again that it is ready to work toward peace as productively as possible. President Trump informed me about his meeting with the Russian president and about the key points of the discussion. It is important that US power influences the development of the situation," the Ukrainian president said. There are fears in Ukraine that Zelenskyy's trip to Washington could result in new pressure from the US on Ukraine. "Any 'no' from the Ukrainian side could be portrayed as [a] lack of willingness to end the war. Trump essentially admitted that it's about an 'exchange of territories for security guarantees,' and he confirmed that agreement was reached on certain points and spoke of a 'chance for success,'" Iryna Herashchenko, Ukrainian MP and co-chair of the opposition party "European Solidarity," wrote on social media. She believes that such formulations allow Moscow to present this as legitimization of its demands. "Putin repeated during the brief briefing once again that the actual causes of the conflict must be eliminated. This means that Moscow will not change its goals - because the existence of an independent Ukraine is seen as the actual cause," warns Herashchenko. Ukrainian political scientist Vadym Denisenko, however, believes that Russia's idea of "doing business with the US in exchange for Ukrainian territory" didn't work. Putin managed to gain time, though. "At Alaska, they agreed to negotiate," Denisenko wrote on social media. Nevertheless, he argues that Putin "lost what was most important: his maneuverability. He drastically restricted his scope for action and is actually rapidly falling into China's arms." Denisenko believes that if no results regarding the end of the war are achieved within two months, the issue will become part of Chinese-American negotiations. "In other words: A new window for negotiations will open earliest at the end of the year, realistically only in spring 2026," he predicted. Judging by discussions among ordinary Ukrainians, what angers them most is the red carpet that was rolled out for Putin at the US military base in Anchorage. Countless angry comments on social media leave little doubt over how this was perceived in Ukraine. "History always remembers not only those who kill, but also those who bestow murderers with honors. This is a special kind of shame and complicity in crime, which is too often confused with diplomacy. Today, this gallery was expanded with a new picture, with a bloody carpet and a parade of honor guard for the architect of Bucha, Mariupol, Izium, thousands of torture chambers, mass shootings, and deportations," said Mustafa Nayyem, former parliament member and ex-head of the State Agency for Reconstruction and Infrastructure.
DW
3 hours ago
- DW
Air Canada: Gov't forces striking cabin crew back to work – DW – 08/16/2025
More than 100,000 passengers were left stranded after Air Canada's flight attendants went on strike. Canada's government says it is stepping in to avoid lasting economic damage. The Canadian government on Saturday moved to end a strike by Air Canada flight attendants. The strike had forced Canada's largest airline to cancel all of its 700 daily flights and grounded over 100,000 passengers at the peak of the summer travel season. The government has ordered an immediate end to the strike and for the Canada Industrial Relations Board to impose binding arbitration on Air Canada and the striking cabin crew. The airline had requested the move, while the flight attendants, who walked off the job early Saturday demanding better pay and conditions, had been opposed to it. "The talks broke down. It is clear that the parties are not any closer to resolving some of the key issues that remain and they will need help with the arbitrator," Canadian Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu told a press conference. She added that Air Canada had said it would take up to five days for its operations to resume fully. "Canadians are increasingly finding themselves in very difficult situations and the strike is rapidly impacting the Canadian economy," Hajdu said, according to a statement. She explained that the government had to act to "preserve stability and supply chains in this unique and uncertain economic context." Hajdu added that her arbitration order was "critical to maintaining and securing industrial peace, protecting Canadians and promoting conditions to resolve the dispute." Flying in Canada, the world's second largest country, is often the only viable option for long-distance journeys. In a social media post, just before 01:00 ET (05:00 GMT), the union represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) confirmed the 72-hour freeze. More than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants were participating in the strike over a pay dispute with the airline. Currently, the flight attendants are paid only when they are flying. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video However, the union wants flight attendants to be compensated for the time they spend on the ground between flights and as they help passengers board. The airline and the union had been in talks for months, but the negotiations collapsed when the union turned down the airline's request to enter into government-directed arbitration. Air Canada, which is based in Montreal, said the strike, which would also have impacted the airline's budget arm Air Canada Rouge, was due to affect around 130,000 passengers per day.
Int'l Business Times
5 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Europeans Try To Stay On The Board After Ukraine Summit
For European leaders, the absence of a Ukraine deal at the summit between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump has at least one upside: They have not yet been completely sidelined in a key strategic moment for the Continent's future. "It's good news that there was no deal, for both Ukraine and the Europeans," said Alberto Alemanno, a European law professor at the HEC university in Paris. He noted a serious risk that "a new European security map" would be drawn up while Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and Europe's leaders watched from the sidelines. Europe found itself shut out of the summit in Alaska, and tried to weigh in ahead of the meeting with a flurry of calls and urgent meetings between leaders ahead of time. On Saturday, the French presidency said the leaders of Britain, France and Germany would host a video call Sunday for their so-called "coalition of the willing" to discuss steps towards peace in Ukraine. The meeting would come a day before Zelensky travels to Washington for talks with Trump -- five months after the Ukrainian leader was ambushed with a televised scolding during his previous Oval Office visit. European leaders also proposed a three-way summit between Zelensky, Putin and Trump. But it remains unlikely that Russia, hit by 18 rounds of European sanctions since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022, is ready for any thaw in its glacial relations with the bloc. Putin made his stance clear on Friday, warning Ukraine and European countries to "not create any obstacles" and not "make attempts to disrupt this emerging progress through provocation or behind-the-scenes intrigues". "Clearly, what Vladimir Putin's intention is, is to keep Europeans out and Americans in," said James Nixey, a specialist in Russian foreign policy. After a debriefing with Trump and with Zelensky on Saturday, European leaders held their own video call on their next steps. Moscow "cannot have a veto" on Ukraine joining the European Union or NATO, they said in a statement signed by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. Macron later called for increased pressure on Russia until "a solid and durable peace" had been achieved. But since the beginning of the war, European leaders "have never engaged with Putin", said Alemanno. "And all of a sudden they have to do so, without knowing exactly what are the terms of engagement," he said. "So they're a bit stuck." The risk is all the greater since Trump has clearly indicated in recent weeks that he is ready to walk away from the war, despite his campaign promise to end it within "24 hours". "Each morning when I wake up, my first thought is that we have to re-arm ourselves even faster," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the Jyllands-Posten newspaper on Saturday.
