One key party who will not be in attendance Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump said Thursday he hopes the summit will lead to a second meeting that would include Zelenskyy.

“There’s no deal until there is a deal,” Trump told reporters at a press conference in Anchorage, Alaska, following a meeting between Trump, Putin, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov. The summit lasted about two hours and 30 minutes.

"The rational world is behaving irrationally by giving him this welcome," she said. Putin's plane had been escorted into the airbase in Alaska by four American fighter jets and as he strolled down the red carpet,

Putin's meeting represented a diplomatic victory after being ostracized by Western leaders since the start of the war. Just a week earlier, Trump was threatening him with new sanctions.

The much-anticipated summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin began with a warm welcome a military flyover but ended with a thud after the two leaders conceded they

President Donald Trump warned that "severe consequences" lie ahead for Russia if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn't agree to stop the Ukraine war after they meet for a high-stakes summit in Alaska on Friday.

European leaders appealed to President Donald Trump to defend their security interests at a key summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.