• U.S. Foreign Policy
• Foreign & Public Diplomacy
• United States
• Russia
• Christina Lu

August 15, 2025, 8:59 PM View Comments ()

All eyes were on Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday as U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for pivotal talks over the future of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine—without their Ukrainian counterpart at the table.

In the days leading up to the summit, Trump appeared to downplay expectations for the talks and any potential diplomatic breakthroughs. But he struck a tougher tone hours ahead of the talks, telling reporters aboard Air Force One: “I want to see a cease-fire rapidly. I don’t know if it’s going to be today, but I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today.” 

Once in Anchorage, the two leaders appeared cozy, with Trump literally rolling out a red carpet for the Russian leader and even allowing him to ride in Trump’s presidential limousine, known as the “Beast.” The warm reception stood in sharp contrast to the fiery and hostile exchange that occurred when Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in February. 

While Trump and Putin were initially expected to meet for one-on-one talks, the two leaders were ultimately accompanied by several top advisors in a last-minute change of plans. Trump was joined by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House envoy Steve Witkoff, while Putin brought Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov. The group met for 2 hours and 45 minutes, according to the Kremlin. 

But even after a press conference with both leaders afterward, it’s not entirely clear what the two leaders agreed to, if anything. “There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Trump said, later adding: “We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”

Below is the full rush transcript of Trump and Putin’s press conference.

Vladimir Putin: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen. Our negotiations have been held in a constructive atmosphere of mutual respect. We had very thorough negotiations that were quite useful. I would like to thank once again my American counterpart for the proposal to travel out here to Alaska. It only makes sense that we’ve met here because our countries, though separated by the oceans, are close neighbors. So when we met, when I came out of the plane and I said, “Good afternoon, dear neighbor, very good to see you in good health and to see you alive,” I think that is very neighborly, and I think that’s some kind words that we can say to each other. 

We’re separated by the Strait of Bering, though there are two islands only between the Russian island and the U.S. island. They’re only 4 kilometers apart. We’re close neighbors, and it’s a fact. It’s also important that Alaska has to do with our common heritage, common history between Russia and the U.S., and many positive events have to do with that territory. 

Still, there is tremendous cultural heritage back from the Russian America [sic]. For example, Orthodox churches and a lot of more than 700 geographical names of Russian origin. During the Second World War, it was here in Alaska that was the origin of the legendary air bridge for the supply of military aircraft and other equipment under the Lend-Lease Program. There was a dangerous and treacherous route over the vast emptiness of ice. However, the pilots of both countries did everything to bring closer the victory. They risked their lives, and they gave it all for their common victory. 

I was just in the city of Magadan in Russia. There was a memorial there dedicated to the Russian and the U.S pilots. And there are two flags: the U.S flag and the Russian flag. And I know that here, as well, there is such a memorial. There is a military burial place several kilometers away from here. The Soviet pilots are buried there who died during that dangerous mission. 

We’re thankful to the citizens and government of the U.S. for carefully taking care of their memory. I think that’s very worthy and noble. 

We’ll always remember other historical examples when our countries defeated common enemies together in the spirit of battle, camaraderie, and allyship—that supported each other, facilitated each other. I’m sure that this heritage will help us rebuild and foster mutually beneficial and equal ties at this new stage, even during the hardest conditions.

It is known that there have been no summits between Russia and the U.S. for four years, and that’s a long time. This time was very hard for bilateral relations, and let’s be frank, they’ve fallen to the lowest point since the Cold War. I think that’s not benefiting our countries and the world as a whole. It is imperative, sooner or later, we have to amend the situation to move on from the confrontation to dialogue. And in this case, a personal meeting between the heads of state has been long overdue.

Naturally, under the condition of serious and painstaking work, this work has been done. In general, me and President Trump have very good direct contact. We’ve spoken multiple times. We spoke frankly on the phone.

And special envoy of the president Mr. Witkoff traveled down to Russia several times. Our advisors and heads of foreign ministries kept in touch all the time, and you know fully well that one of the central issues was the situation around Ukraine. We see the strive [sic] of the administration and President Trump personally to help facilitate the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, and his strive to get to the crux of the matter, to understand this history, is precious. 

As I’ve said, the situation in Ukraine has to do with fundamental threats to our security. Moreover, [we] would always consider the Ukrainian nation, and I’ve said it multiple times, a brotherly nation. However strange it may sound in these conditions, we have the same roots, and everything that’s happening is a tragedy for us and [a] terrible wound. 

Therefore, the country is sincerely interested in putting an end to it. At the same time, we’re convinced that in order to make the settlement lasting and long-term, we need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict, and we’ve said it multiple times, to consider all legitimate concerns of Russia and to reinstate a just balance of security in Europe and in [the] world on the whole. And I agree with President Trump as he has said today, that naturally the security of Ukraine should be ensured as well. Naturally, we are prepared to work on that. 

I would like to hope that the agreement that we’ve reached together will help us bring closer that goal and will pave the path toward peace in Ukraine. We expect that Kyiv and European capitals will perceive that constructively and that they won’t throw a wrench in the works and will not make any attempts to use some backroom dealing to conduct propositions to torpedo the nascent progress. 

Incidentally, when the new administration came to power, bilateral trade started to grow. It’s still very symbolic. Still, we have a growth of 20 percent. As I said, we have a lot of dimensions for joint work, and it’s clear that the U.S. and Russian investment and business cooperation have tremendous potential. Russia and the U.S can offer each other so much in trade, digital, high-tech, and in space exploration. We see that Arctic cooperation is also very possible in our international context, for example, in between the Far East of Russia and the West Coast of the U.S. 

Overall, it’s very important for our countries to turn the page, to go back to cooperation. It is symbolic that not far away from here, in the water between Russia and [the] U.S., there is a so-called international dateline. I think you can step over literally from yesterday into tomorrow, and I hope that we’ll succeed in that in [the] political sphere. 

I would like to thank President Trump for our joint work, for the well-wishing and trustworthy tone of our conversation. It’s important that both sides are result-oriented, and we see that the president of the U.S. has a very clear idea of what he would like to achieve. He sincerely cares about the prosperity of his nation. 

Still he understands that Russia has its own national interests. I expect that today’s agreements will be the starting point, not only for the solution of the Ukrainian issue but also will help us bring back businesslike and pragmatic relations between Russia and the U.S. 

And in the end, I would like to add one more thing. I’d like to remind you that in 2022, during the last contact with the previous administration, I tried to convince my previous American colleague that the situation should not be brought to the point of no return when it would come to hostilities. And I said it quite directly back then that it’s a big mistake. 

Today, when President Trump was saying that if he was the president back then, there will be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that. I think that overall, me and President Trump have built a very good businesslike and trustworthy contact, and I have every reason to believe that moving down this path, we can come, the sooner the better, to the end of the conflict in Ukraine. Thank you. Thank you.

Donald Trump: Thank you very much. Mr. President, that was very profound, and I will say that I believe we had a very productive meeting. There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway. So there’s no deal until there’s a deal. 

I will call up NATO in a little while. I will call up the various people that I think are appropriate, and I’ll of course call up President Zelensky and tell him about today’s meeting. It’s ultimately up to them. They’re gonna have to agree with what Marco [Rubio] and Steve [Witkoff] and some of the great people from the Trump administration who’ve come here, [U.S. Treasury Secretary] Scott [Bessent] and [CIA Director] John Ratcliffe. Thank you very much. We have some of our really great leaders. They’ve been doing a phenomenal job. 

We also have some tremendous Russian business representatives here. And I think you know, everybody wants to deal with us. We’ve become the hottest country anywhere in the world in a very short period of time. And we look forward to that—we look forward to dealing. We’re going to try and get this over with. We really made some great progress today.

I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir. We had many, many tough meetings, good meetings. We were interfered with by the “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax that made it a little bit tougher to deal with, but he understood it. I think he’s probably seen things like that during the course of his career. He’s seen it all, but we had to put up with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax, but what was done was very criminal, but it made it harder for us to deal as a country in terms of the business and all of the things that we’d like to have dealt with, but we’ll have a good chance when this is over. 

So, just to put it very quickly, I’m going to start making a few phone calls and tell him what happened, but we had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to. 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. We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there. 

I would like to thank President Putin and his entire team whose faces who I know, in many cases, otherwise other than that whose faces I get to see all the time in the newspapers. You’re almost as famous as the boss, especially this one right over here [pointing to Lavrov]. 

But we had some good meetings over the years, right? Good, productive meetings over the years, and we hope to have that in the future. But let’s do the most productive one right now. We’re going to stop, really, 5, 6, 7,000, thousands of people a week from being killed, and President Putin wants to see that as much as I do, so, again, Mr. President, I’d like to thank you very much, and we’ll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon. Thank you very much, Vladimir. 

Putin: Next time in Moscow. 

Trump: Oh, that’s an interesting one. I don’t know, I’ll get a little heat on that one, but I, I can see it possibly happening. Thank you very much, Vladimir, and thank you all. Thank you.