A highly anticipated summit between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday yielded no agreement to resolve or pause Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
However, both leaders described the talks as productive.
During a brief appearance before the media following the nearly three-hour meeting in Alaska, the two leaders said they had made progress on unspecified issues.
But they offered no details and took no questions, with the normally loquacious Trump ignoring shouted questions from reporters.
“We’ve made some headway,” Trump said, standing in front of a backdrop that read, “Pursuing Peace.”
“There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” he added.
The talks did not initially appear to have produced meaningful steps toward a ceasefire in the deadliest conflict in Europe in 80 years, a goal Trump had set ahead of the summit.
But simply sitting down face-to-face with the U.S. president represented a victory for Putin, who had been ostracized by Western leaders since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Following the summit, Trump said he would hold off on imposing tariffs on China for buying Russian oil after making progress with Putin.
Russia-Ukraine war: Trump departs for Alaska to meet Putin
He has targeted India, another major buyer of Russian crude, with an additional 25% tariff on U.S. imports.
“Because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that now,” Trump said of Chinese tariffs.
“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,” he added.
Trump has also threatened sanctions on Moscow but has thus far not followed through, even after Putin ignored a Trump-imposed ceasefire deadline earlier this month.
In the Fox News interview, Trump also suggested a meeting would now be set up between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which he might also attend.
He gave no further details on who was organizing the meeting or when it might be.
Putin made no mention of meeting Zelensky when speaking to reporters earlier.
He said he expected Ukraine and its European allies to accept the results of the U.S.-Russia negotiation constructively and not try to “disrupt the emerging progress.”
He also repeated Russia’s long-held position that what Russia claims to be the “root causes” of the conflict must be eliminated to reach a long-term peace, a sign he remains resistant to a ceasefire.
There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine to the summit, the first meeting between Putin and a U.S. president since the war began.
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