Live updates: Trump meets Putin in Alaska for discussions in Ukraine

Anthony Zurcher
Corresponding to North America, in Anchorage

“There is no agreement before there was an agreement,” said Donald Trump at the start of his post-commet remarks here in Anchorage.

It was a way of concretizing that after several hours of talks, there is no agreement. No ceasefire. Nothing tangible to report.

The president said that he and Vladimir Putin made “great progress” – but with little details on what it could be, this is left to the imagination of the world.

“We did not get there,” he said later, before leaving the play without responding to the hundreds of journalists gathered.

Trump has gone a long way to produce only whims, even if the American European allies and Ukrainian officials could be relieved that he did not offer unilateral concessions or agreements that could have undermined future negotiations.

For the man who likes to boast as a peacemaker and a job, it seems that Trump leaves Alaska without any of the two. There is also no indication that a future summit involving the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is to be published – “next time in Moscow” in Putin on his next meeting.

While Trump had less at stake during these negotiations than Ukraine or Russia, it will always put a breach in its national and international prestige after the previous promises that this meeting had only 25% of failure.