By Andrew Thornebrooke and Ryan Morgan
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 15 met for nearly three hours at a military base in Alaska as part of a U.S.-led effort to bring Russia and Ukraine into peace talks.
Trump was joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, while Putin was joined by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and presidential foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov.
In a joint press conference after the summit, both leaders described the meeting as productive, but the two sides did not reach a concrete deal. The U.S. president is due to talk with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO in the hopes of convening a further meeting to end the war.
Here are the key takeaways.
‘No Deal Until There’s a Deal’: Trump
At a brief press conference after their meeting, both leaders said progress had been made in the talks. They did not provide specifics or take questions from reporters.
Trump told reporters that there were “just a very few” issues to resolve. Some were not that significant, he said, but “one is probably the most significant,” without providing details.
“There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Trump said.
“We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there,” he added.
The two leaders did not mention a cease-fire or other key elements of negotiations, such as security guarantees for Ukraine or further U.S. sanctions on Russia and its supporters.
When later asked what key points the two sides disagreed on, Trump declined to say.
“I’d rather not” go public with it, Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I guess somebody is going to go public with it. They’ll figure it out.”
Trump also told Fox News that he won’t immediately consider more secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian oil, such as China, but may at a later date.
“Because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that now. I may have to think about it in two or three weeks,” the president said about potential tariffs against China for buying fossil fuels from Russia.
The U.S. government recently increased tariffs to 50 percent for imports from India, one of the major buyers of Russian oil.
Red Carpet and Flyover
Ahead of the summit, both leaders stepped out from their presidential aircraft and joined one another on a red carpet on the tarmac at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska’s largest military facility.
As the leaders walked down the red carpet for a chance to take a photo together, a U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and four F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters conducted a flyover. The two leaders stood on a podium emblazoned with the words “Alaska 2025” for a photo op, as reporters shouted questions.
After one reporter shouted, “President Putin, will you stop killing civilians?” Putin pointed to his ear and shrugged, suggesting he couldn’t hear the question.
Putin then rode together with Trump in “The Beast,” the U.S. president’s heavily armored limousine, to the summit location.
The meeting marks Putin’s first visit to the United States since a United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York in 2015, and his first visit to a NATO country since a working visit to Germany in 2020.
Putin Highlights Security
At the post-meeting press conference, Putin said that Russia would continue to seek to “eliminate all the primary roots” of the conflict in Ukraine and to address “fundamental threats to Russian security.”
Those two phrases have been used by Putin and Russian state media throughout the war to refer to Russia’s demand that Ukraine be prohibited from joining NATO or other similar international organizations.
Just days before launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin delivered an address describing the potential accession of Ukraine to NATO as “a direct threat to the security of Russia.”
Ukraine has expressed interest in joining NATO but has never been formally considered for membership.
The Russian leader also appeared to make reference to NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe in recent decades, which Moscow says is a threat to Russian sovereignty.
“All of Russia’s legitimate concerns must be taken into account, and a fair balance in the security sphere in Europe and the world as a whole must be restored,” Putin said.
The Russian leader also said, “We agree with President Trump, as he has said today, naturally, that the security of Ukraine should be ensured as well.”
Putin Hopes for Warmer Ties With US
Putin, during the press conference, described the business his country had lost in recent years and the moderate increase in bilateral trade since Trump returned to office. The Russian leader also described Trump as a “good, businesslike, and trustworthy contact.”
“I expect that today’s agreement will be the starting point not only for the solution of the Ukrainian issue, but also will help us bring back business-like and pragmatic relations between Russia and the U.S.,” Putin said.
Putin nevertheless acknowledged that American-Russian relations were at their “lowest point since the Cold War,” but described Trump’s effort to resolve the war in Ukraine and invitation to Alaska as “very neighborly.”
Trump to Relay Details of Meeting to Ukraine, NATO
While both leaders kept mum on the precise nature of their sticking points, Trump said that the direction of the peace process was ultimately up to Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, the rest of Europe.
“I’m going to start making a few phone calls and tell them what happened,” the U.S. president said.
Kyiv and most European leaders have yet to comment on the summit, presumably due to the time difference.
Some expressed appreciation for Trump’s efforts to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, while being wary of Putin’s statements.
“I welcome the fact that President Trump is trying to stop the war, that he is continuously talking about it with European representatives, and that he will inform us in Europe about the results of today’s meeting,” said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky on X.
“But Putin has uttered the same propaganda gibberish about the ‘roots of the conflict’ that his state television is preaching. The problem is Russian imperialism, not the Ukrainian desire to live freely.”
Trump told Fox News that the next steps would rely on the willingness of Zelenskyy to participate. European leaders must also “get involved a little bit” to push towards an agreement, he added.
When asked by Hannity after the meeting what advice he had for Ukraine, Trump’s response was straightforward.
“Make a deal.”
Emel Akan contributed to this report.
