Trump, Putin end short summit without ceasefire deal in Ukraine

Al Jazeera

12 hours ago

US President Donald Trump's meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin ended in Alaska without a deal on halting Moscow's war on Ukraine, but it did give the Russian president a 'diplomatic win' after years of being shunned by the West, observers said.
The Russian president was greeted with a red carpet and a warm handshake from President Trump on arrival at a US airbase in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday as both leaders arrived for talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
It marked President Putin's first time stepping on Western soil since he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and was notable in its welcoming atmosphere compared with the frosty reception a hostile Trump laid on for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in February.
Taking to a stage to deliver remarks after they spoke behind closed doors for less than three hours, the two leaders said they had made progress on unspecified issues, offering no details and taking no questions from a phalanx of assembled international reporters and television cameras.
A visibly upbeat Putin was the first to speak, telling how he had greeted Trump on his arrival in Anchorage with the lines: 'Good afternoon, dear neighbour', owing to the geographic closeness of Alaska to Russia.
'We are close neighbours, and it's a fact,' Putin said.
Putin said his meeting with Trump was 'long overdue' and that he 'hoped the agreement that we've reached together will help us bring close that goal and will pave the path towards peace in Ukraine '.
'We expect that Kyiv and European capitals will perceive that constructively and that they won't throw a wrench in the works,' Putin said. 'They will not make any attempts to use some backroom dealings to conduct provocations to torpedo the nascent progress,' he said.
Trump then thanked Putin for his 'very profound' statement, adding that the two had a 'very productive meeting '.
'There were many, many points that we agreed on. Most of them, I would say. A couple of big ones that we haven't quite got there, but we've made some headway,' Trump said.
'So there is no deal until there is a deal,' Trump said, adding that he will now call up NATO as well as President Zelenskyy and others to brief them on the meeting.
'It's ultimately up to them,' the president said.
'Many points were agreed to,' he continued, without providing any details.
'There are just a very few that are left; some are not that significant, one is probably the most significant,' Trump said without elaborating.
'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.'
There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv to the outcome of the summit, described as 'anticlimactic'.
Ukraine's opposition lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said on the Telegram messaging app after the talks: 'It seems Putin has bought himself more time. No ceasefire or de-escalation has been agreed upon.'
Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Anchorage, Alaska, said President Trump is likely to come in for criticism for a summit that 'all became much ado about nothing'.
'The only achievements that were actually made was that the Russian president has been able to continue his war, which we know is now a war of attrition and which each day favours the Russian side,' Halkett said.
'He has bought time,' she said.
Also reporting from the summit, Al Jazeera's diplomatic editor, James Bays, said Ukraine's European allies – who had been pushing for concrete steps to come out of the meeting, such as a ceasefire – will likely see the meeting as 'a big win for President Putin'.
'And it does beg all sorts of questions about where the diplomacy on Ukraine goes,' Bays said.
Trump ended his remarks at the news conference on Friday by telling Putin, 'I'd like to thank you very much, and we'll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon.'
To which Putin quickly chipped back: 'Next time, in Moscow.'
Trump then responded, saying that he might 'get a little heat on that one' but that he could 'possibly see it happening'.