August 15, 2025
No ceasefire. No deal.
After almost three hours of meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, president trump did not get what he traveled to Alaska to get…a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Earlier this week president trump promised that Putin would pay if he didn’t do what trump wanted and agree to a ceasefire after today’s meeting.
Well we know now that Putin did not agree to a cease fire today. But President Trump said nothing about following through with any of those threats of consequences. It does not appear – at least right now – that Russia will face any sanctions for continuing this war. Instead — President Trump indicated that there would perhaps be more meetings.
During an uncharacteristically short press conference where president trump did not take any questions and spoke for less than four minutes – this is how Trump characterized the results of the meeting.
Yes. That’s vague. But this whole press conference was strangely vague. We’re used to President Trump talking a lot even when he’s next to another foreign leader and taking a bunch of questions – but he didn’t do any of that today. Trump and Putin just thanked each other and thanked their diplomats…talked about points they had agreed to – which we still don’t know what those are – and we assume the most significant point that they ‘didn’t get there” on was a ceasefire. President Putin spoke first and he talked for almost 10 minutes beginning with his version of a history lesson. But by the end of his comments – it was clear – he has not change his position one bit on Ukraine. He used the same language about getting to the “root causes” of the conflict before there can be peace. From Putin’s perspective – the root cause of the conflict is that Ukraine exists. Putin believes Ukraine is belongs to Russia. That’s the root cause. Obviously Ukraine believes differently. Based on his comments Putin instead seemed less interested in peace in Ukraine and more interested in reestablishing business ties with the United States.
From President Trump’s quick comments it did not seem like he was going to play ball or do any business with Russia until there was a deal on Ukraine first. President trump said he was going to talk with our NATO allies and of course Ukrainian president Zelensky to fill them in on the meeting.
Watch President Trump’s press conference with Putin here.
Watch Trump talk about Russia sanctions here.
