President Donald Trump’s high-profile meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin adjourned Friday without an announcement in negotiations to end Russia’s three-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
“We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there,” Trump said after several hours of closed-door negotiations with Putin in Anchorage.
The talks ended sooner than previously expected, indicating the two leaders may be far apart.
In a pair of brief speeches, the leaders said they were optimistic about improvements in relations between the United States and Russia.
Putin said they had reached “an agreement,” according to a provided translation, but neither Putin nor Trump provided any details about what that agreement entails.
Before the meeting, Trump had indicated he might favor a land exchange between Russia and Ukraine as part of a peace deal. European leaders, including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said they did not support any deal that would require Ukraine to surrender territory.
“We had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to,” Trump said Friday without explaining what those points were. “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.”
Zelensky plans to meet with Trump at the White House on Monday “to discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war,” the New York Times reported.
During a planned news conference, Putin spoke for only eight minutes, and Trump, who normally delivers lengthy and meandering remarks, spoke for only four and appeared tired.
Both men then left without taking any questions from a room full of international journalists, an action that stunned and confused attendees.
Many of those journalists, as well as Putin, Trump and officials from both Russia and the United States, traveled thousands of miles to meet at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a base operated by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city.
Because of the summit’s short notice — Trump announced it on social media just one week ago — the city’s hotel rooms were all but sold out, and rental cars were almost impossible to find.
At the University of Alaska Anchorage, members of the Russian delegation, including journalists, were given cots in curtained-off spaces within Alaska Airlines Arena.
En route to Alaska, Trump told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One that he was “not going to be happy” if there was no ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine by the end of the day, according to news reports.
He said he didn’t know what would make the summit a success and said there was “nothing set in stone.”
As originally announced, Trump and Putin were supposed to meet in a one-on-one meeting Friday morning. That changed to a three-on-three, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s Russia envoy, Steve Witkoff, joining Trump.
They talked behind closed doors lasted for at least 2 ½ hours.
But discussions didn’t appear to result in even a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine, whose leaders were not invited to Alaska.
Ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting, disgruntled Alaskans held protests across the state, waving Ukrainian flags and urging the United States to support Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
A smaller counterprotest in support of the president, hosted by Alaska Republicans, took place just as Air Force One landed in Alaska about 11 a.m. Friday morning.
About 30 minutes after Trump’s arrival, Putin’s plane landed at the Anchorage military base after a stop in Magadan, in the Russian Far East.
Trump disembarked first and greeted Putin with applause and a firm handshake before inviting the Russian leader into the presidential limousine.
Putin’s arrival in the United States represented a kind of diplomatic victory for the Russian leader, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court and faces arrest if he visits many countries, including most in Europe. The Trump administration opposes the ICC and does not typically enforce its arrest warrants.
Additionally, Trump has declined to impose additional financial and economic sanctions on Russia and Russian officials, something he had pledged to do if Russia did not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Eric Croft, chair of the Alaska Democratic Party, said in a written statement, “Just as we expected, Trump failed to accomplish anything meaningful by inviting a war criminal to a meeting on American soil without Ukrainian representation at the table. … To be frank, we are disappointed, but not surprised, and we will not back down from applying pressure to Trump to achieve lasting peace in Ukraine.”
Putin boarded his plane for a return flight about 4 p.m. Trump was scheduled to depart before 6 p.m.
Their original schedule had called for more lengthy discussions, but reporters were called to a news conference sooner than expected.
That appeared to be in line with remarks Trump gave the day before, in the Oval Office.
“I would say that (on Friday), all I want to do is set the table for the next meeting, which should happen shortly,” Trump said on Thursday. “I’d like to see it happen very quickly, very shortly after this meeting. I’d like to see it actually happen in Alaska … because it’s so much easier.”
On Friday, Putin delivered his remarks mostly in Russian but joked in English that maybe next time, they could meet in Moscow.
Trump said he would “get a little heat” if he agreed to that, “but I could see it possibly happening.”
Even without a breakthrough peace deal, Friday’s meeting between the two presidents was a historic one. It was the first time since Ronald Reagan met Pope John Paul II in Fairbanks in 1984 that an American president had hosted a foreign leader in Alaska.
Before Friday, no Russian leader had ever visited Alaska — a place whose territory nominally belonged to Russia from the 1700s until 1867.
James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. A graduate of Virginia Tech, he is married and has a daughter, owns a house in Juneau and has a small sled dog named Barley. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
UPDATE:
Trump, Zelenskyy exit White House talks hopeful about security guarantee for Ukraine
BY: JACOB FISCHLER - AUGUST 18, 2025 7:30 PM
President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European allies at the White House Monday celebrated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s concession of NATO-like security protections for Ukraine as part of a future peace deal between the two countries.
In a social media post on Monday night, Trump said he called Putin after the meetings were over and began arrangements for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, at a location to be determined. After that meeting, all three would meet, Trump said.
At the White House earlier, Zelenskyy and officials from Western Europe called Putin’s acceptance of security guarantees for Ukraine protecting the nation against another attack a major step toward ending the three-year-old war.
Dating to before the war, one point of tension between Ukraine and Russia has been Ukraine’s increasingly warm relationship with the West, with potential membership in NATO a major issue for Putin.
But Trump said Putin accepted something like it during the pair’s meeting in Alaska last week.
“The Alaska summit reinforced my belief that, while difficult, peace is within reach,” Trump said before a group meeting in the White House’s East Room. “In a very significant step, President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Trump and Zelenskyy met one-on-one in the Oval Office before a handful of European leaders joined them for a multilateral meeting in the East Room.
During introductions for the multilateral meeting, Zelenskyy said it had been his best meeting with Trump to date, and he was “very happy” with Trump about the possibility of winning security guarantees.
“We spoke about it, and we will speak more about security guarantees,” he said. “This is very important that (the) United States gives such (a) strong signal and is ready for security guarantees.”
The other attendees Monday were NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
‘Article 5-like’
Several European allies highlighted the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine, which they compared to the NATO charter’s Article 5 that compels every member state to defend any other member that has been attacked.
“It’s very good to hear that we’re working on the security guarantees,” von der Leyen said. “Article 5-like security guarantees: so important.”
The next step in the peace process would be to set up direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy, possibly also to include Trump.
Trump said he had spoken to Putin “indirectly” on Monday and that he planned to phone the Russian president following the meeting with European leaders.
Ceasefire needed?
Before meeting with Putin, Trump had supported a ceasefire as a path toward a permanent end to the war, though he came out of the Alaska summit closer to Putin’s position that a ceasefire was not necessary before a final peace agreement.
Monday, he said he would like a ceasefire to immediately end violence, but that it was not strictly necessary from a diplomatic point of view. The United States had helped negotiate the ends of other conflicts without a temporary ceasefire in place, he said.
“All of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s necessary.”
Germany’s Merz pushed back, saying a ceasefire should be a precondition for a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting.
“I can’t imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire,” Merz said. “So let’s work on that, and let’s try to put pressure on Russia, because the credibility of these efforts we are undertaking today are depending on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations.”
Smoother meeting with Zelenskyy in suit
At the open-press portion of Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy, the two appeared on friendlier terms than they had during the Ukrainian leader’s last Oval Office visit in February, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance complained Zelenskyy was not appreciative enough of U.S. aid.
As the February meeting turned heated, Trump told Zelenskyy he had “no cards” to fight Russia on his own or make demands of the United States.
But Monday, Trump resisted an option to return to that argument, brushing off a reporter’s question about which country had “better cards.”
And Zelesnkyy also wore an all-black suit Monday after a writer at a pro-Trump media outlet questioned him at the February meeting about wearing military-style attire.
“You look fabulous in that suit,” the same writer said Monday.
“I said the same thing,” Trump echoed.
Jacob covers federal policy and helps direct national coverage as deputy Washington bureau chief for States Newsroom. Based in Oregon, he focuses on Western issues. His coverage areas include climate, energy development, public lands and infrastructure.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
