President Donald Trump supports Russian leader Vladimir Putin's proposal for Moscow to take full control of the Donbas and freeze the front lines elsewhere for a deal with Ukraine.

“There’s no deal until there is a deal,” Trump told reporters at a press conference in Anchorage, Alaska, following a meeting between Trump, Putin, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov. The summit lasted about two hours and 30 minutes.

In a few short hours in Alaska, Vladimir Putin managed to convince Donald Trump that a Ukraine ceasefire was not the way to go, stave off U.S. sanctions, and spectacularly shatter years of Western attempts to isolate the Russian president.

From start to finish, President Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin was rife with pomp and circumstance.

Russian President Putin speeches during their joint press conference with U.S. Persident Donald Trump after their meeing on war in Ukraine at U.S. Air Base In Alaska on August 15, 2025, in Anchorage,

Speaking after Friday’s summit, President Putin again implied that the war is all about Russia’s diminished status since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, in an unusual move wrote a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin and got it hand-delivered by Donald Trump during a meeting between the two leaders in Alaska.

The interaction between the two leaders was closely watched not only for diplomatic outcomes, but also for the physical cues exchanged during their greeting.