President Donald Trump walked into a summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin pressing for a ceasefire deal and threatening “severe consequences” and tough new sanctions if the Kremlin leader failed to agree to halt the fighting in Ukraine.

One key party not be in attendance Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump said after his meeting with the Russian president that he would call Zelenskyy and update him on the talks.

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,

Lawmakers retreated to their partisan corners in response to the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, with Republicans praising the president and Democrats arguing he was too cozy with Putin.

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

One of the documents indicated Trump planned to give the Russian president an “American Bald Eagle Desk Statue.”

Former NSC Chief of Staff Fred Fleitz discusses the ramifications of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska and the next phase of efforts to end the war in Ukraine on ‘Fox News Live.’