What are the outcomes of Trump and Putin's Alaska summit
The two leaders, meeting at Elmendorf Air Force Base, said they had made “progress” but offered no details and walked off stage without answering questions after a brief news conference

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended a three-hour summit in Alaska on Friday without announcing any agreements, leaving Trump's call for a Ukraine ceasefire unmet.
The two leaders, meeting at Elmendorf Air Force Base, said they had made "progress" but offered no details and walked off stage without answering questions after a brief news conference, says CNN.
"There were many, many points that we agreed on – most of them, I would say," Trump said, while noting that "a couple of big ones" remained unresolved. "There's no deal until there's a deal," he added.
Trump had said in advance that he wanted a ceasefire in Ukraine to come out of the meeting. No such step was announced, and Trump indicated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would need to negotiate directly with Moscow.
The meeting included official ceremonies and protocol, but the lack of outcomes highlighted the difficulty of achieving Trump's stated goals. Even as the summit began, Ukrainian authorities reported alerts for incoming Russian drones and aircraft.
The talks marked a high-profile encounter between the US and Russian leaders but produced no concrete agreements on security or the war in Ukraine.
Here are key takeaways from Friday's summit in Anchorage:
Progress but not a deal
Both Trump and Putin offered a vague accounting of a meeting that stretched for hours.
"We had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to," Trump told reporters. "There are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there. We didn't get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there."
In an interview immediately after the summit, Trump was asked by Fox News' Sean Hannity about territorial concessions that would give Russia land it didn't previously have and about potential US security assurances for Ukraine.
"Well, I think those are points that we negotiated, and those are points that we largely have agreed on," Trump said without elaborating.
He stressed that Ukraine "has to agree to it." Asked what his advice was for Zelensky, Trump responded: "Gotta make a deal."
In the lead-up to the talks, it was always clearer what an unsuccessful outcome would look like than a successful one. Trump had vowed to "walk" if he didn't like what Putin was saying, threatened to downgrade the joint news conference to a solo appearance and said "severe" consequences would come for Moscow if the war didn't end, reports CNN.
But as he flew to Anchorage, Trump said he didn't know what success would look like — suggesting he would recognize it when he saw it.
It turns out, success was just as hard to identify after the summit as it was when it began.
Trump says he'll be at potential Putin-Zelensky meeting
In his Fox interview, Trump said both Putin and Zelensky want him at a potential second meeting — which he had said before the summit would be his ultimate objective.
"They both want me there, and I'll be there," he told Hannity.
Trump said nothing about the prospect of a trilateral meeting at the news conference, only indicating he would get on the telephone with "the various people that I think are appropriate" — including Zelensky — to update them on the talks.
But the only forthcoming meeting mentioned during Trump and Putin's joint appearance was a potential follow-up with the Russian leader.
"We'll speak to you very soon, and probably see you again very soon," Trump said.
"Next time in Moscow," Putin responded in English — a suggestion that would appear to exclude Zelensky from the discussion.
Putin back in from the cold
Soon after his arrival in the US, Putin's grin as he peered out the window of Trump's limousine said everything: after years of western isolation, he was back in the most powerful nation on earth, says CNN.
It had been 10 years since Putin was last in America and several more since he was welcomed to the country for a major presidential summit. After he invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Russian leader was made a pariah by many leaders, unwelcome in most western nations and even threatened with an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. (Alaska was a desirable location for the summit, in part, because the US is not a member of the ICC.)
But Putin's isolation ended when his plane landed in Anchorage. With a red carpet welcome, a flyover of fighter jets and a round of applause from the US president himself, the message from Trump was clear: Putin was back in from the cold. Their smiling greeting was hailed on Russian state television as a "historic handshake."
Though Putin is still not welcome in many places in Europe, the decision to host him by Trump — who oversees the world's largest economy and its most powerful military — does more to erode attempts at diplomatic shunning than any other leader could attempt.
That became clearer when Putin climbed into Trump's armored vehicle, an unusual gesture that seemed to capture in an instant the Russian leader's return to global diplomacy. Even without any major progress, it was, for him, a victory.
Aides were added to what had been billed as a one-on-one
The surprise came just as Trump was landing: No longer would he be meeting Putin one-on-one, with only their translators present. Instead, two aides would join each leader for their bilateral talks.
That was different from earlier in the week, when the White House said the summit would include a one-on-one component. A US official said it was a late change but offered no explanation for why the format shifted.
Trump's one-on-one meetings with Putin during his first term were shrouded in a degree of mystery. With only a translator inside the room, it was often unclear what exactly was discussed. Aides sometimes had a difficult time ascertaining if the two men reached any agreements. After one such meeting, in Germany, Trump asked his interpreter to discard his notes.
The addition of two aides to Friday's session — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US special envoy Steve Witkoff — could allow for greater clarity in the coming days, particularly if Russia offers an accounting of events that differs from the US perspective.
Still, there was one moment that only Trump and Putin will be able to recount: their brief ride in the presidential limousine from the tarmac to the room where the meeting took place. No one else was in the car with them except Secret Service agents — no advisers or even translators.
That leaves the contents of their brief chat known only to them.