President Donald Trump led a large delegation of administration officials to Alaska on Friday for a historic summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin (and his own smaller delegation). Trump is infamously obsessed with winning a Nobel Peace Prize, has bragged that he is a master negotiator, and has repeatedly said he can cut a deal to end the war in Ukraine and at the very least expected a ceasefire agreement from this summit. But by the time it was over, the meeting hadn’t seemed to accomplish much of anything. Here’s what happened, along with analysis and some of the reactions.

Putin opened his joint press conference with Trump in Alaska on Friday by ranting for several minutes about history before finally making his way to current events — and announcing in a very roundabout way that he intends to continue his war.

After a multi-hour meeting behind closed doors, Putin took to the podium and said only briefly that negotiations to end the war in Ukraine had been “productive.” He then launched into a minutes-long lecture about Russia’s links to Alaska and shared history with the U.S., saying the two countries are “close neighbors.” He said he’d even greeted Trump that way on the tarmac before negotiations, telling the American president: “Good day, dear neighbor.”

After hyping a history of “shared enemies” between Moscow and Washington, Putin repeated his worn-out claim that Ukraine, too, is a “brotherly” nation, and the war a “tragedy” that Russia did not cause. The Alaska summit, he said, provided a “reference point” for eventually “solving the Ukrainian problem.”

No immediate agreement was reached to stop the fighting, however.

In a thinly veiled jab at Ukrainian leaders — who the Kremlin has long accused of thwarting peace efforts by not agreeing to give up territory — Putin urged European leaders and those in Kyiv to take a “constructive” approach without “provocations” or “behind the scenes intrigue” that might derail progress.

He then wrapped up his speech by endorsing Trump’s oft-repeated claim that there would have been no war in Ukraine if Trump had won the 2020 presidential election.

“Today we hear when President Trump says, ‘If I were president, there would have been no war.’ I think that is actually true. I confirm that,” he said.

Reporters weren’t given the opportunity to ask questions following Putin’s remarks. If they had been, perhaps one of them would have asked how Trump could have prevented a war that started in 2014.

They are not great for Trump. Fox News’s coverage was pretty bleak:

Sounds like from US perspective, they were disappointed. And have to think Witkoff did not understand what Kremlin told him last week when they agreed to a meeting and presumably thought they could have an agreement to announce. https://t.co/ekBPtxrQJk

Another:

Well, that was anticlimactic.

3 takeaways from the Trump-Putin summit:

1) No real progress: Despite signals of some agreement, there's no specificity.

2) Next steps unclear: Will Trump sanction? More meetings?

3) There was warmth...until there wasn't. Relationship on rocks?

Also:

One thing that was definitely clear was Putin hasn't changed his demands for Ukraine's capitulation at all.

He said they hoped “the understanding we reached here will help us get closer to the goal of peace in Ukraine [but] all the root causes of the conflict must be resolved.”

Comments CSIS senior fellow Maria Snegovaya:

It seems that things are the same as before. From Putin’s side — “eliminating the root causes of the conflict,” handing Trump maps and historical materials on Ukraine, an expressed agreement to continue negotiations, and so on. Trump, for his part, also appeared dissatisfied: “We were unable to reach full understanding.” The working lunch with Putin and Trump was canceled, as was the expanded meeting of the two delegations.

So far, apart from Putin’s diplomatic victory — the visit of an international criminal to the United States, the red carpet, and applause from the American president — there is no sign of progress, something many analysts had warned about in advance. I hope this is good news for Ukraine. Putin’s intransigence should be followed by American sanctions.

Tom Rogan at the Washington Examiner praised Trump’s projection of strength but panned his follow through:

Following their meeting, Trump announced that while progress had been made on numerous issues, Russia had still not agreed to a ceasefire. Suggesting Trump’s embarrassment, the two leaders took no questions.

Trump had an opportunity to translate the theatrics of his earlier military display into political effect. He could have condemned the Russian leader for continuing this war, or even said he wasn’t happy about it and left the stage. Instead, the president celebrated Putin’s new economic relations offer and said he would talk to America’s NATO allies. Perhaps sanctions will follow those consultations, but Trump gave the distinct impression that Putin has earned himself a reprieve.

If that is the case, Trump will have once again been hoodwinked at the intersection of Putin’s KGB charm and his disingenuous dangle of opportunities beyond Ukraine. 

After a three-hour three-on-three meeting, both President Putin and President Trump announced that the meeting was productive, but that was about it. Neither offered any details about what they had worked on, had agreed to, or any timeline for how that will progress, regarding Ukraine or any other issue.

The two leaders praised one another, Trump told Putin he’ll “probably see you again very soon,” and Putin invited him to Moscow. “Oh, that’s an interesting one,” Trump replied. “I don’t know, I’ll get a little heat on that one, but I could see it possibly happening.”

Trump: We’ll probably speak to you soon and see you again very soon

Putin: Next time in Moscow

Trump: Ohhh… I could see it possibly happening pic.twitter.com/cHvGtQ9IIL

So it’s possible that this meeting somehow laid the groundwork for a future deal, but for now, we’re waiting for more information about what the meeting accomplished, if it accomplished anything.

The bottom line is that Trump’s goal was to get at least a ceasefire in Ukraine out of Putin, along with the expectation of a second meeting. He maybe got the latter and didn’t get the former.

Both were expected to take questions, but instead each president made an announcement and then they quickly left.

He called Putin’s remarks profound, and stresses that they had a productive meeting, but he needed to call NATO leaders and Ukraine and brief them on the talks. “We really made some great progress today,” he said. He also made a point to attack the “Russia hoax.”

“We haven’t quite got there, but we’ve got some headway. There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” he said at the start.

Trump: I will say I believe we had a very productive meeting. There were many, many points that we agreed on… there is no deal until there is a deal

I will call up NATO in a little while. I will call up the is various people that I think are appropriate and I will of course…

© Daily Intelligencer