Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, in their first joint press conference since 2018, stood together on Friday in Alaska, following almost three hours of behind-closed-doors discussions. The meeting was symbolic, though tangible results on Ukraine were in doubt.
Traditionally, an American president leads off joint remarks when hosting a foreign leader. But in Anchorage, Putin disrupted that custom, stepping to the podium first and speaking in Russian while Trump waited a short distance away. Opening with a remark he said he had already shared on the tarmac, Putin greeted his counterpart with: “Good day, dear neighbour, hope you’re well.”
The Russian president relied particularly on geography and common history themes in emphasizing Alaska's history as Russian land. He framed the United States and Russia as bound not only by proximity but by "shared history," and depicted Moscow as an ally, not competitor.
A face-to-face meeting was overdue," Putin stated, and that he and Trump now had "very good direct contact." His introductory comments focused primarily on the course of US-Russia relations, with meaty topics reserved for the end.
As he briefly touched upon Ukraine, Putin declared that the two parties had signed on to "pave the road to peace," but without giving any details. He maintained that the "root causes" of Russia's security challenges need to be tackled before any sustainable deal can be reached—a term used earlier in contexts that have portended calls like regime change in Kyiv, which Ukraine and Europe strongly rejected.
Reiterating Moscow’s stance, Putin described Ukrainians as “a brotherly people” whose security “must be ensured,” but he declined to elaborate further.
Trump, while noting progress, underscored that nothing concrete had been achieved. “We haven’t quite got there, but we’ve got some headway,” he said, before adding: “There’s no deal until there’s a deal.”
With Ukraine left out of the Alaska negotiations, few within the White House anticipated a breakthrough. Any agreement, US officials said, would in the end depend on Kyiv's approval. Trump will leave without a deal in his pocket, though both leaders highlighted the positive tone of their interaction.
Putin also focused on economic cooperation with Washington, while urging European countries not to "torpedo the nascent progress" achieved in the meeting. Russian state media also quoted Ambassador Alexander Darchiev, who characterized the tone of talks as "generally positive."
The shared appearance in itself was significant. It was the first time since the 2018 Helsinki summit that Putin had appeared on a press stage with an American president. That previous appearance generated severe backlash for Trump for seeming to take Moscow's side over US intelligence conclusions regarding election tampering.
By contrast, when Joe Biden met up with Putin in Geneva in 2021, he went out of his way not to have a joint press conference, instead speaking alone to keep the Russian leader from dictating the post-summit narrative.
In Alaska, though, Putin grabbed that opportunity—grabbing the microphone first, dictating the stage on his own terms, and presenting himself as the one to usher in a new chapter, even without a signed peace treaty to herald it.
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