The summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin was shorter than had been planned. But it was mostly successful.
Trump had urgently needed the meeting. He had pushed for a ceasefire in Ukraine. He had threatened to impose secondary sanctions against buyers of Russia's oil to press Russia towards that.
But Russia did not budge. Its interest is to eliminate the root cause of the war in Ukraine – the expansion of NATO towards Russia's borders. A ceasefire would only have paused the war but would not have solved the underlying issue.
For Trump the threat of secondary sanctions had become a trap. Some rather mild addition of tariffs against India had led to a strong backlash. India did not stop buying Russian oil but turned away from the U.S. to endorse Brics, Russia and China. Imposing secondary sanctions against China would have escalated into a trade war with China which the U.S. has no way to win.
The summit created a win for each side.
Trump acknowledged that a ceasefire was not possible and that the war needs to end with an all-encompassing peace agreement:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – Aug 16, 2025, 8:46 UTC
A great and very successful day in Alaska! The meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia went very well, as did a late night phone call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and various European Leaders, including the highly respected Secretary General of NATO. It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up. President Zelenskyy will be coming to D.C., the Oval Office, on Monday afternoon. If all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin. Potentially, millions of people’s lives will be saved. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
After he had given Putin that part of the cake Trump took his own piece.
In an interview (vid) with Foxnews after the summit Trump was asked about imposing sanctions. He responded: "Well, because the meeting went so well, we don’t have to think about that now.”
There will be no ceasefire to freeze the conflict and there will be no sanctions. Both sides can count that as wins.
The task of ending the conflict was tossed off to Zelensky and Europe:
Without hesitating, Trump said that his advice to Zelenskyy after Friday’s meeting with Putin would be "make a deal."
On Monday Zelenski will be told to give up and to make peace with Russia. European protests against that will be ignored.