Talks between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have ended after more than two and a half hours. The leaders met in a three-on-three meeting along with top advisers a for high-stakes summit in Alaska that could determine the trajectory of the war in Ukraine and the fate of European security.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s final words at the Alaska summit were delivered with a smile, spoken in an uncharacteristic burst of English.

From start to finish, President Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin was rife with pomp and circumstance.

Russian President Putin speeches during their joint press conference with U.S. Persident Donald Trump after their meeing on war in Ukraine at U.S. Air Base In Alaska on August 15, 2025, in Anchorage,

Halibut Olympia, a Tuesday-night kind of recipe, was part of the planning (if not the eating) at the Friday meeting.

In a few short hours in Alaska, Vladimir Putin managed to convince Donald Trump that a Ukraine ceasefire was not the way to go, stave off U.S. sanctions, and spectacularly shatter years of Western attempts to isolate the Russian president.

Alaska and Crimea remain linked in some ways today, both viewed by some nationalists as historic Russian regions lost by weak leaders – Yeltsin, the first president of independent Russia, is reviled for recognizing Crimea as part of Ukraine after the USSR collapsed.

U.S. State Department documents containing sensitive government information were discovered on a public printer at an Alaska hotel, two hours before a high-stakes summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.