President Donald Trump of the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russia held their highly anticipated meeting in the Alaskan city of Anchorage, with the Russian leader receiving the red carpet treatment as he disembarked from his plane.
Both leaders provided brief statements to reporters after the shorter-than-expected talks, which failed to achieve their primary goal – a deal bringing an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Putin said his country is committed to ending the war. Still, the conflict’s “primary causes” must be eliminated for an agreement to be long-lasting.
Putin also warned Ukraine and its European allies against throwing a “wrench in the works” and cautioned against attempts to use “backroom dealings to conduct provocations to torpedo the nascent progress”.
Trump praised the “extremely productive meeting”, in which he said “many points were agreed to”. Trump conceded, however, that there remain sticking points with Moscow, including at least one “significant” one.
Trump concluded his remarks by saying “there’s no deal until there’s a deal”, and that he would call NATO officials and Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy to discuss the meeting.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the talks between Putin and Trump allowed both countries to continue seeking ways to achieve a settlement, the Interfax news agency reports.
“The conversation was indeed very positive, and the two presidents spoke about this. This is the very conversation that allows us to confidently move forward together along the path of searching for settlement options,” Peskov said, according to Interfax. Peskov did not elaborate on the settlement to which he was referring.
However, Representative Gregory Meeks of New York issued a statement on behalf of the Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, slamming Trump for his summit with Putin.
Meeks framed the summit as an easy public relations victory for Putin, at the expense of US allies in Europe.
“The fact that this meeting even took place – at the invitation of President Trump, on American soil, without Ukraine present, and with zero concessions from Russia – is an undeserved reward for Putin,” Meeks wrote.
Critics have pointed out that Trump has failed to hold Putin to any of the deadlines he imposed for a ceasefire, including one set for August 8. Meeks appeared to reprise that argument in his statement.
“President Trump should have pressured Putin by imposing crushing sanctions on his war machine and providing Ukraine with the tools it needs to defend itself,” he said.
“Instead, by quite literally rolling out the red carpet, Trump has legitimised Russia’s aggression and whitewashed Putin’s war crimes. It’s shameful.”
Trump said he will reconsider retaliatory tariffs on countries buying Russian oil “in two or three weeks”.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump said his meeting with the Russian leader in Alaska “went very well”, and “because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that”, he said, referring to the tariffs.
“Now, I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don’t have to think about that right now. I think, you know, the meeting went very well.”
President Trump’s much-anticipated meeting with President Putin ended without achieving its primary objective – securing a commitment from the Russian leader to end his war in Ukraine.
Journalist James Bay, reporting from Anchorage, Alaska, noted that the key takeaway from the US side is that the meeting didn’t go as badly as expected. Trump, however, believes it was highly productive, marking the beginning of a process.
“Meanwhile, it will be seen very, very differently on the other side of the Atlantic because European leaders and Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy had key things they wanted to come out of this meeting: number one, a ceasefire. There has been no ceasefire agreed.
“Number two, a second meeting. Expand this and get Ukraine at the table. A three-way meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy, and Putin. No agreement on that. The second meeting is going to happen. But it is going to be Donald Trump going to Moscow. A rehabilitation of President Putin in the international community … if the US leader were to follow through and visit Moscow.
“The other thing that European leaders had wanted was for this meeting to be entirely focused on Ukraine. They did not wish to broaden it to reviving diplomatic relations between the US and Russia.
Those were all things they had hoped to avoid, and they occurred during this meeting. So, I think, in Europe, this will be seen as a big win for President Putin, and it does beg all sorts of questions about where the diplomacy on Ukraine goes,” he concluded.
