The much-anticipated summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin began with a warm welcome and a flyover by screaming jets at a U.S. military base in Alaska but ended with a thud Friday after they conceded that they had failed to reach any agreements on how to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
After about 2 1/2 hours of talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, the two men appeared before reporters for what had been billed as a joint news conference — but they took no questions.
“We had an extremely productive meeting and many points were agreed to, there are just a very few that are left,” Trump said. “We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”
Putin, welcomed into the U.S. after being shunned by Western allies since early 2022 for ordering the invasion of Ukraine, thanked Trump for hosting the meeting and suggested with a chuckle that the next time the two sit down it could be in Moscow.
Here are key takeaways from the summit:
A warm welcome underscoring the friendly Trump-Putin relationship.
Putin got a red carpet welcome and even rode in Trump’s presidential limousine from the tarmac to the summit venue. There, the pair were joined by two of their top aides: Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff for Trump and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and national security adviser Yuri Ushakov for Putin.
Putin, who spoke first after the meeting concluded, lauded the historical relationship between the United States, Russia and the former Soviet Union, recalling joint missions conducted by the two countries during World War II.
Trump touts progress but concedes there was no deal.
Only show? With diplomatic progress creeping along, time is on Putin’s side.
A press conference without questions. Both men said the talks were “productive” but the lack of any announcement of solid achievements was revealing.
The news conference ended up being less than 15 minutes of rather standard diplomatic comments — and gave no indication that any concrete results were achieved — and offered little departure from their previous comments on the war in Ukraine.
Trump has made it a feature of his second term to parry questions from reporters in front of world leaders, but in the clearest sign of his disappointment, the president abruptly cut short his plans to take questions.
