US President Donald Trump said Friday the onus was now on Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to build on the Alaska summit between the US leader and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and secure a deal to end Russia’s three-year invasion.
“Now it’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done. And I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit, but it’s up to President Zelensky,” Trump told Fox News after the summit, saying he rated the meeting as ten out of ten.
The summit between the two leaders took place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, report agencies.
The US President said he and Vladimir Putin didn’t reach a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine after meeting on Friday — despite Putin saying they had come to “an understanding” — as the two leaders offered scant details on what was discussed while heaping praise on each other.
In brief remarks as they shared a stage after meeting for about 2 ½ hours in Alaska, Putin said he and Trump had reached an “understanding” on Ukraine and warned Europe not to “torpedo the nascent progress”.
But Trump then said, “There’s no deal until there’s a deal” and said he planned to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders soon, to brief them on the discussions.
“We had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to,” Trump said. “And there are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”
He continued: “We didn’t get there.”
The high-profile summit ended without a deal to end, or even pause, the brutal conflict — the largest land war in Europe since 1945 — which has raged for more than three years.
Zelenskyy and European leaders were excluded from Trump and Putin’s discussions, and Ukraine’s president was left posting a video address in which he expressed his hope for a “strong position from the US”
Trump has visited the base several times since he first took office in 2017, but Friday’s trip was the first stop in Alaska of his current term.