MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly at the presidential summit in Anchorage, Alaska.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
And I'm Ari Shapiro in Washington. After a week of build-up, President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin warmly greeted each other on a red carpet at an Air Force base in Alaska. Then they met for about three hours and emerged to say very little. There was no press conference, and the presidents headed home, leaving behind more questions than answers. NPR correspondents Charles Maynes in Moscow and Greg Myre in Kyiv were watching, and they're both with us now. Hi, guys.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Hi there.
SHAPIRO: Let me just ask you both, what was your main takeaway from the brief statements by the two leaders? Greg, you go ahead first.
MYRE: Well, in a word, underwhelming. Putin spoke first after the meeting, and he talked about the agreement we've reached. So it sounded like there might be something substantive there, possibly a breakthrough. But when Trump spoke just a few minutes later, from his first words, it became clear that there wasn't an agreement.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: 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 Zelenskyy and tell him about today's meeting. It's ultimately up to them.
MYRE: So President Trump is not one to downplay a deal or even a potential deal, but he spoke very briefly. He provided no details, and there was just no sign of a breakthrough on the war in Ukraine or anything else. And, Ari, remember, Trump has been trying to broker a ceasefire for months. Ukraine has agreed, said they would go along with that. Russia hasn't. It keeps putting conditions and saying they need to talk about root causes. So Trump had grown frustrated with Russia. Trump seemed to think he could meet with Putin and perhaps persuade him, but there's no sign that Putin made any concessions.
SHAPIRO: And, Charles, how did this look from Moscow?
MAYNES: Well, you know, Putin went from an ostracized leader who Trump was threatening with massive sanctions if he didn't end the war just a week ago to a friend who was being welcomed on U.S. soil. So that has to feel good. You know, even Putin seemed to play on this sudden change of fortunes when he brought up this idea of quickly turning the page in U.S.- Russian relations, metaphorically mentioned the idea of time travel. And he pointed to the fact that due to time zones, he'd literally left Russia's Far East Friday night and magically ended up in Alaska Friday morning. Let's listen.
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PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: So here, Putin says it's symbolic that the border between the U.S. and Russia lies on the so-called international date line. He said you can literally move from yesterday to tomorrow, and that's what he hoped the U.S. and Russia would do in the political sense. So Putin is really turning on the charm offensive here, not only praising shared culture and history in Alaska, which he mentioned we were neighbors. We expected that. But he's also embraced Trump's often-repeated claims that the war in Ukraine never would have happened in 2022 if Trump had remained president. Well, you know, Trump is now president. These two leaders are in the same room, and yet, apparently no deal, not even a partial ceasefire, which many in Moscow thought was a realistic outcome here.
SHAPIRO: Back to you, Greg. I know it's in the middle of the night in Ukraine, but how do you think the summit is likely to be received when everybody wakes up?
MYRE: Yeah, so no reaction yet, but we've been talking to Ukrainians for the past week, ever since this summit was announced, and we have a pretty good sense of where they stand and what their concerns are. The big Ukrainian worry was that Putin and Trump would reach some kind of arrangement behind closed doors, a partial ceasefire, like Charles just mentioned. And then Ukraine will face pressure to accept it, even though Ukraine was not part of the talks. But that didn't happen based on what we know so far, and if indeed that is the case, then Ukraine is probably going to feel some sense of relief that this summit hasn't put them in a weakened or more vulnerable position.
Now, we'll have to see if the Alaska summit leads to any further talks. Before the summit, Trump spoke of a future meeting that could include Zelenskyy. But he did say that before. He didn't mention it afterwards. He didn't specify any future meetings. So Trump said he would be calling Zelenskyy very soon, and that will give the Ukrainians a sense of where things stand. And, of course, we'll keep close watch on the battlefield in the hours and days ahead to see if the fighting carries on as it has been.
SHAPIRO: You know, Charles, we have seen very little evidence of compromise or concessions from Putin on Ukraine. Was there any hint of that today?
MAYNES: You know, beyond all the flattery we heard, I think if you listen hard, it seemed like Putin once again wasn't giving any ground on Ukraine. He talked about how Trump now understood Russia's security concerns, or better understood, I should say. And he said he hoped Ukraine and Europe wouldn't undermine progress he and Trump had made without providing specifics. And as Greg had mentioned, he also used this phrase, the root causes of the conflict. Well, that's always been Kremlin speak for demands that Ukraine formally end its ambitions to join NATO, that it demilitarize and cede territory that Russia claims but doesn't fully control.
And moreover, I think what we saw was more of this pattern in Putin's approach to dealing with Trump and his demands for peace in Ukraine, which is basically to slow walk the peace negotiations while talking up bilateral deals and other kind of things outside of it. So we heard Putin talk up the potential for U.S. investments in the Arctic. Going into these talks, he talked about nuclear arms talks. You know, and this is designed to keep Trump on the hook, to keep him from walking away. And judging by Trump's sunny tone and the invitation that Putin seemed to offer him to visit next time in Moscow, it may have worked.
SHAPIRO: Greg, do you think this brief summit is ultimately likely to reassure or unnerve Ukrainians?
MYRE: Well, their worst fears weren't realized. So I think they might come out of this feeling that this was the least bad option, or it could have been much, much worse. And I just think we'll have to see how this plays out. But again, just the way this summit was put together so quickly. You know, normally, you would have something agreed to beforehand so that Trump would tell Putin, you have to agree to a ceasefire, and Ukraine would know that something like that is happening. And there would be expectations or minimal expectations, at least, that would be met. Here we see no expectations being met, so it leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Greg Myre in Kyiv and Charles Maynes in Moscow. Thank you both.
MAYNES: Thank you.
MYRE: Sure thing, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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