Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he will meet US President in Washington on August 18 to discuss in detail the prospects of ending the war and the ongoing violence.
NEW YORK — Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin said that they made progress in three hours of talks on Friday, moving closer to finding an end to the Ukraine War, but did not announce an immediate ceasefire.
“It’s not a done deal at all”, he told a Fox News interviewer after Friday’s summit in Alaska. “And Ukraine has to agree. President (Volodymyr) Zelensky has to agree.”
“We had a very good meeting today, and I think a lot of points were negotiated on behalf of Ukraine”, he said.
Before the summit, he said that he would not be negotiating on behalf of Ukraine and that the meeting was a sounding board aimed at facilitating a direct meeting between Presidents Putin and Zelensky.
“Now it’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done”, President Trump said of a peace deal.
“We have a pretty good chance of getting it done”, he added.
“They’re going to set up a meeting now, between President Zelensky and President Putin and myself, I guess”, he said.
President Trump had said that he could call an immediate meeting between Presidents Putin and Zelensky if the discussion went his way.
At the end of the news conference, he told Putin, “We’ll speak to you very soon, and probably see you again very soon”.
President Putin chirped up, “Next time in Moscow.”
President Trump saying that “it’s not a done deal” amounted to an admission that he did not get the immediate ceasefire he had insisted on.
At the same time, the fact that he had not terminated the negotiations within minutes and walked away, as he had threatened earlier, could be a sign of a breakthrough.
Nor did he announce the “very severe consequences” he had threatened if Putin did not agree to peace.
At the news conference after their talks concluded, Putin was upbeat.
“I would like to hope that the agreement that we’ve reached together will help us bring closer that goal (of finding a solution) and will pave the path towards peace in Ukraine”, he said.
“I have every reason to believe that, moving along this path, we can reach the end of the conflict in Ukraine sooner rather than later”, he added.
“I believe we had a very productive meeting”, Trump said. “There were many, many points that we agreed on.”
President Trump said cryptically there were “a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway”.
“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”, he added.
Fox News interviewer Sean Hannity pressed President Trump about the differences they had.
He said that he would rather not talk about it, but added, “I guess somebody is going to go public with it. They’ll figure it out. But no, I don’t want to do that. I want to see if we can get it done.”
The main points of difference going into the talks were: Land swap or re-drawing of borders that would give Russia some Ukrainian territories, and a security guarantee from Europeans and the US for Ukraine.
Trump has spoken of a land swap, which would be politically hard for Zelensky.
British Defence Secretary said on Friday that the United Kingdom and its allies are ready to put troops in Ukraine to guarantee its security if there is a ceasefire.
Trump also spoke in support of troops to guarantee security, but ruled out their going under the NATO banner.
Putin may have conceded the security guarantee issue as he said, “Naturally, the security of Ukraine should be true. Naturally we’re prepared to overcome that.”
Trump said that he would be calling his Western allies and Zelensky to brief them on the summit.
He will have to convince the Europeans and Zelensky, who were sceptical about the summit but were willing to give it a chance that there had been progress.
The summit was truncated and only one of the planned phases – a meeting with key officials, Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — was held.
Instead of the first phase, a private meeting between them, Trump and Putin spoke directly as they walked down the red carpet and continued the conversation in Trump’s limousine.
They started the talks with officials and called off the planned third phase, which was to have been a luncheon with more officials, especially those dealing with trade and investment.
Putin had said he wanted to expand the talks to include Nuclear arms control, and Ushakov suggested trade and economic cooperation.
Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, and Special Presidential Representative for Investment Kirill Dmitriev, and US Secretaries Pete Hegseth of Defence, Scott Bessent of Treasury, and Howard Lutnick of Commerce were on standby.
The third phase in which the topics were expected to be discussed, did not take place.
The summit began with a choreographed welcome as the US Air Force 1 and Russia’s presidential aircraft landed almost simultaneously.
Trump clapped as Putin walked toward him on the red carpet.
They smiled and shook hands as four F-35s and a B-2 Spirit bomber flew overhead.
Ukraine Prez Zelensky to meet US President Trump on Aug 18
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reaffirmed on Saturday that Ukraine remains committed to working with maximum effort to achieve peace. He also announced that he will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, on Monday (August 18) to discuss in detail the prospects of ending the war and the ongoing violence.
This development comes after President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin concluded a high stakes meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.
resident Zelensky took to social media platform ‘X’ to share details of his recent communication with President Trump.
“We had a long and substantive conversation with POTUS. We started with one-on-one talks before inviting European leaders to join us. This call lasted for more than an hour and a half, including about an hour of our bilateral conversation with President Trump. Ukraine reaffirms its readiness to work with maximum effort to achieve peace. President Trump informed me about his meeting with the Russian leader and the main points of their discussion. It is important that America’s strength has an impact on the development of the situation,” Zelensky wrote.
He further expressed support for President Trump’s proposal of holding trilateral talks.
“We support President Trump’s proposal for a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the USA, and Russia. Ukraine emphasises that key issues can be discussed at the level of leaders, and a trilateral format is suitable for this,” he added.
President Zelensky also confirmed his upcoming meeting with President Trump in Washington. — With inputs from agencies
