By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Aug 15 summit, the first Russia-US summit since June 2021, comes at one of the toughest moments the Ukraine in the war.

It was the first time Putin was invited to a Western country since he ordered the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Putin faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, including transporting Ukrainian children to Russia. It was also the first time that a Russian presidential visit to the United States was held on a U.S. military property.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin departed the summit in Alaska without reaching an agreement to end the fighting in Ukraine.

The high-stakes summit between US President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin began with a warm greeting and a flyover by screaming jets at a military base in Alaska, but ended with the US host conceding that they had failed to reach an agreement on how to end the fighting in Ukraine.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on Friday made no breakthrough on Ukraine at their much-anticipated summit, pointing to areas of agreement and rekindling a friendship but offering no news on a ceasefire.

As for the UK, Downing Street remained tight-lipped about a response.

Last night, the Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told BBC Radio 4 that Ukraine must be able to make decisions about its future, and that position is unlikely to change.

In recent months, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has coordinated some foreign policy decisions with allies such as France, Germany, and Canada. It wouldn’t surprise me if conversations with those countries are also happening right now.

Vladimir Putin remains determined to “revive the Soviet Union” by “destroying democracy next door”, Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia has said in the wake of the Russian president’s inconclusive meeting with the US president, Donald Trump.

Trump, fond of calling himself a master deal-maker, rolled out the red carpet for Putin at an Alaska air base for the first time the Russian leader was allowed on Western soil since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Putin and Trump met for nearly three hours in Alaska, emerging to tell reporters that “great progress” had been made on a deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine but that there was no peace agreement.

“There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Trump said, saying he would brief Nato leaders and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the meeting.

“Now, it’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done. And I would also say the European nations have to get involved a little bit. But it’s up to President Zelensky... And if they’d like, I’ll be at that next meeting,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity after meeting Putin in Alaska.

“They’re going to set up a meeting now between President Zelensky and President Putin, and me, I guess.”

He added that he will not have to think of retaliatory tariffs on countries buying Russian oil right now, but may have to “in two or three weeks”.

“Well, because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“Now, I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don’t have to think about that right now. I think, you know, the meeting went very well.”

It was not clear whether the talks had produced meaningful steps toward a ceasefire in the deadliest conflict in Europe in 80 years, a goal that Trump had set at the outset. But the US leader told Fox News that he gave “today a 10” on a scale of one to 10.

“There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Trump said, saying he would brief NATO leaders and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the meeting.

Putin, through an interpreter, said while he agreed Ukraine’s security should be guaranteed insisted the “root causes” of the conflict must be resolved.

Speaking to the ABC in the wake of the meeting, Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, said the root cause of the conflict from Putin’s perspective was a sovereign, independent, and democratic Ukraine.

“When Putin talks about the ‘root cause of war’, it’s an independent Ukraine on the map of Europe. That’s the only cause of war for Russia.

“He planned to take over Kyiv in several days, the entire Ukraine in several weeks … he is pursuing his ambition of destroying democracy next door.”

Putin had given no indication he was prepared to withdraw from his irredentist ambitions, Myroshnychenko said.

As Trump and Putin met in Alaska, Russia launched 85 attack drones and a ballistic missile targeting Ukraine’s territory, Ukraine’s Air Force said on Saturday.

Frontline territories in the Sumy, Donetsk, Chernihiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions were targeted in the overnight strikes, the air force said on the Telegram messaging app. It said its air defense units destroyed 61 of the drones. The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its daily morning report that 139 clashes had taken place on the front line over the past day.

Meanwhile, Russian media, citing the country’s defense ministry, said Russia’s air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 29 Ukrainian drones overnight over various Russian regions, including 10 downed over the Rostov region.

“Putin is just out there on his mission to revive the Soviet Union, to revive the Russian empire, and it can’t be revived without Ukraine. Just overnight, as we speak, Russians have attacked many Ukrainian cities, sending many drones. So we don’t see any indication of him ending his war.”

On a positive note, Norway’s foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, says it is too early to tell if the meeting resulted in any progress.

“We must continue to put pressure on Russia, and even increase it, to give the clear signal to Russia that it must pay the price (for its invasion of Ukraine),” Eide told reporters in Oslo.

Earlier this month, Eide had said on X that he welcomed Trump’s “initiative to bring Russia’s illegal war to an end”. But had added: “Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine. A dignified peace must be a lasting and just peace. No decision about Ukraine should be made without Ukraine. Its sovereignty & territorial integrity must be respected.”

Trump says no Ukraine agreement after Putin talks as he advises Zelenskyy to ‘make a deal.’

 

 

For updates click hompage here