All eyes were on Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as they met for the first time in more than six years, the Russian president visiting the US for high-stakes talks that could reshape the war in Ukraine.
The two leaders greeted each other with a handshake after stepping off their planes at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage, Alaska – and a smiling Trump even applauded Putin as he approached him on a red carpet that had been laid out.
Following the talks, both leaders described the summit as productive but said no deal had been reached – and the word ceasefire was not mentioned by either.
Trump-Putin summit – latest updates
They did not take questions from reporters – leaving perhaps even more questions than before the talks started.
Here is the view from our correspondents on what the summit means for Ukraine, Putin and Trump.
‘The first question: what’s the most significant stumbling block’
Had they mentioned a ceasefire today, it would have changed the nature of the discussion, says US correspondent James Matthews. We appear to be well short of that, I think.
Putin’s statement about the fundamental causes – to make this settlement lasting and long term, we need to eliminate the primary cause to consider all legitimate concerns of Russia. That’s been Russia’s starting point and it’s been the sticking point throughout this whole process.
For Putin to stand on that stage alongside Trump and have the confidence to articulate that tells me that that resonates with Trump, and Putin is welded to that as an ongoing position – a position which is unacceptable to Ukraine.
In terms of Trump, he was talking up the meeting, called it very productive. We haven’t quite got there, he said. There’s no deal until there’s a deal.
He spoke about how he was going to call NATO, Zelenskyy, and it was an extremely productive meeting, he said – accentuating the positive, but in there was the negative. He said there are many points that we agree to, but many points yet to be agreed – some not significant, one most significant.
Of course, the first question would have been, had they taken questions, well what’s the most significant stumbling block? And what are you going to do about it? Are you with him on that? And if you’re not, what are the consequences
So frankly, if both those men, both big beasts in this conflict, the two individuals most influential, if they are both welded to Russia’s headline ask, what Russia has wanted all along throughout this, then I have to say there will be pessimism around the prospect of taking this any further.
I’m not quite sure what the reaction is that Trump expects in Ukraine and in European capitals, but it might be a very difficult phone call. Elsewhere in that discussion or these two separate statements, we got a sense, I thought, of Putin the player, how he has succeeded in reeling in Donald Trump and engaging with him as an old friend – that’s how it very much appeared, the old friend that he’s invited back to Moscow.
‘Putin spoke as if he was the host’
Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett, who travelled with the Russian delegation to Alaska, described the news conference as “one of the most unusual” he’s attended, and also noted it must have been “the first and only time” Trump has not taken any questions from the press – probably because “Putin made that a condition” – something the Russian leader often does.
Bennett also said that despite the Russians saying they expected the talks to last six or seven hours, it ended “much sooner” than that.
“At this stage, we just don’t know what’s happened,” he said.
But what he found really interesting is that Putin spoke first in the news conference, “as if he were the host”.
“He said that he welcomed Donald Trump like a neighbour – again, kind of cementing this idea that he was the one in charge here, he was the one calling the shots.”
He also noted that while the slogan behind the two men read “pursuing peace”, Putin appeared to actually be pursuing better bilateral relations with the US.
And Putin’s reference to the “root causes” of the Ukraine conflict is his “buzzword… that suggests that all of Russia’s red lines still remain – that it doesn’t want NATO to expand any further east, it wants Ukraine to agree to permanent neutrality”.
“So it doesn’t look like Vladimir Putin has made any concessions, despite Donald Trump claiming that many points have been agreed upon.”
As for their initial red carpet meeting before the talks, he said it was a moment the Russian leader had craved – being welcomed on to US soil as an equal for a meeting of great powers.
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Our international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn, in Kyiv, gauged the Ukrainian reaction to Putin’s arrival – and says people are furious at the red carpet welcome extended by the Trump team.
Images of US soldiers on their knees, unfurling the red carpet at the steps of the Russian leader’s plane, have been going viral, he reports.
Social media has been lit up with fury, anger, and disgust, he says. There are different ways of welcoming a world leader to this type of event, and Trump has gone all out to give a huge welcome to Putin, which is sticking in the craw of Ukrainians.