President Donald Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Russia’s accused war criminal dictator on American soil, honoured him with a flyover of US military jets, invited him into the presidential limousine to share a ride and a laugh and, hours later, apparently ended the meeting without Vladimir Putin’s agreement to stop his brutal invasion of Ukraine.

“There’s no deal until there is a deal,” Trump said at a joint appearance with Putin at the end of three hours of discussions at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, just outside Anchorage, Alaska.

“We had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to. 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,” Trump said. “We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”

Putin spoke for nine minutes, spending much of the time explaining Russian and American cooperation during World War II, the geographic proximity of Alaska and eastern Russia and how nice it was to have Trump as president again.

“It is known that there have been no summits between Russia and the US for four years, and that’s a long time,” Putin said through an interpreter.........

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