Russian President Vladimir Putin’s final words at the Alaska summit were delivered with a smile, spoken in an uncharacteristic burst of English.

In reality, the Russians got exactly what they wanted. Trump completely backpedaled on this and looked extremely weak.” President Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week in Alaska produced no deal to end the war in Ukraine.

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.

Vladimir Putin made a stop en route to Alaska in Magadan, an impoverished region of Russia’s Far East where locals complain of a lack of investment and infrastructure issues that are common across the country.

President Trump and aides have raised and lowered expectations for his Friday summit with Vladimir Putin, making the meeting hard to grade.

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.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, will attend President Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, according to two senior Defense Department officials.