August 16, 2025 | 08:53 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The highly anticipated summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday failed to produce an agreement to halt the war in Ukraine.
Despite the lack of a breakthrough, both leaders described the negotiations as productive, according to reports from Arab News and CNA.
In a brief press appearance after nearly three hours of talks, they claimed to have made progress on unspecified issues. However, they provided no details and did not answer questions. Trump, who is typically loquacious, ignored questions shouted by journalists.
"There were many, many points that we agreed on. I would say a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite got there, but we’ve made some headway," said Trump, standing in front of a banner that read, "Pursuing Peace."
"There’s no deal until there’s a deal," he added.
The negotiations appeared to yield no immediate, meaningful steps toward a ceasefire in Europe's deadliest conflict in 80 years or toward a future meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, two key goals Trump had set before the summit.
Putin expressed hope that Ukraine and its European allies would constructively accept the outcome of the U.S.-Russia talks and not try to "disrupt the emerging progress."
"I expect that today’s agreements will become a reference point, not only for solving the Ukrainian problem, but will also launch the restoration of business-like, pragmatic relations between Russia and the United States," Putin said.
However, Putin also reiterated Moscow's long-standing position that the "root causes" of the conflict must be eliminated to achieve long-term peace, a clear signal that he continues to reject an immediate ceasefire.
While the two leaders were talking, the war continued. Much of eastern Ukraine remained under the threat of airstrikes, and governors in Russia's Rostov and Bryansk regions reported drone attacks by Ukrainian forces.
Zelensky has consistently ruled out the possibility of officially handing over any territory to Moscow and has sought security guarantees backed by the United States. Trump stated he would contact Zelensky and NATO leaders to provide an update on the Alaska negotiations.
There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv to the summit's outcome. Via the Telegram messaging app, Ukrainian opposition parliament member Oleksiy Honcharenko wrote, "It seems Putin has bought himself more time. No ceasefire or de-escalation has been agreed upon."
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky welcomed Trump's efforts in a statement but expressed doubt about Putin's sincerity. "If Putin were serious about negotiating peace, he would not have been attacking Ukraine all day today," he said.
The anticlimactic conclusion of the closely watched summit stood in stark contrast to its initial pomp and circumstance. When Putin's plane arrived at the Air Force base in Anchorage, a red carpet was rolled out. Trump warmly greeted him as military planes flew overhead.
For Putin, this summit—his first with a U.S. president since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022—was a major victory regardless of the outcome. He can now portray the meeting as evidence that the West's years-long efforts to isolate Russia have failed and that Moscow is regaining its rightful place in international diplomacy.
Trump had hoped that securing a ceasefire in the 3.5-year war would bring peace to the region and strengthen his credibility as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Putin is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has accused him of war crimes for the deportation of hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia denies the allegations and has dismissed the ICC's arrest warrant as legally void. It is important to note that neither Russia nor the United States is a member of the ICC.
Both Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians, but thousands of civilians, mostly Ukrainians, have been killed in the conflict. The war has resulted in more than a million casualties, including both deaths and injuries, on both sides.
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