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.

After leaving Alaska, Trump says he would prefer to "go directly to a peace agreement" to end the war in Ukraine as he prepares to meet Zelensky on Monday.

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.

Trump has visited Alaska several times as president, pushed for expanded oil, gas and mining permits there, and even got funding for new polar icebreakers, a popular stance in a state he won with 54% of the vote in 2024.

The high-stakes summit at the Anchorage Air Force base comes as the U.S. seeks a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war.

In a summit meeting marked by red carpets, handshakes and military flyovers, President Vladimir Putin made his first trip to the United States in a decade and was greeted warmly by President Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump is set to travel to Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday morning to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the first US-Russia summit since former President Joe Biden took office in 2021.