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.

P resident Donald Trump dismissed criticism of his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska as "fake news" Sunday night on Truth Social, saying the war in Ukraine could be ended "almost immediately" but critics were making it harder to do so.

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.

The US president said a peace agreement would be better than a "mere" ceasefire, hours after summit with Putin that produced little.

Trump and Putin met at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday afternoon to discuss an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine, which began more than three years ago. The pair announced “great progress” had been made, but they still did not reach any kind of plan to end the war.

One key party who will not be in attendance Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump said Thursday he hopes the summit will lead to a second meeting that would include Zelenskyy.

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.