What Trump and Putin said – and didn’t say – after their meeting in Alaska

Amna Nawaz:

And Nick Schifrin joins us now from the room where that press conference took place between Presidents Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska.

So, Nick, at the end of this summit, the end of the announcements from both those presidents, what's your sense of what was accomplished here?

Nick Schifrin:

You heard from President Trump at the end of our piece just now suggesting it was all positive.

But, at the same time, at the beginning of our piece, you really heard President Trump say that they had not had any agreement on some of the major issues. And you heard President Putin say that Ukraine cannot make any progress without solving those root causes. And Putin has been talking about that for years.

Those are nonstarters for Ukraine, things like capping the size of Ukraine's military or membership in Western institutions, or perhaps even the number of NATO soldiers in Eastern Europe that Putin has been complaining about for years.

So, while the two presidents definitely made progress just restarting the kind of normal dialogue, in the word that many Russian officials use, a normal dialogue between Putin and Trump — and you heard at the end, of course, at the press conference Putin joke, next time, we will meet in Moscow. Trump said, OK, maybe.

So, certainly a progress toward a normalized conversation, at least, but in terms of the substance of what Trump came here to get, a cease-fire in Ukraine, the substance of what Trump wanted to hear from President Putin that, yes, he was willing to end the war, it's pretty clear, Amna, tonight that President Trump did not get what he was looking for here.

Amna Nawaz:

And, Nick, there's a remaining question, of course, about future meetings that do involve President Zelenskyy, Ukrainian officials. But if Ukrainian officials are watching all of this closely, European officials are watching all this closely, what did they take away from what just happened?

Nick Schifrin:

I mean, I do think it's important to note that if there was going to be another meeting — and President Trump did say they made enough progress to have another meeting — that next meeting would be between Zelenskyy and Putin.

So, those conversations, those negotiations over that meeting will continue. But as we have been talking about, Amna, the Europeans were incredibly worried that President Trump would come in here and offer President Putin something about Ukraine's future without Ukraine in the room. We don't know exactly what he's offered. We don't know exactly how far he's gone with President Putin.

And so the European concerns remain. But if President Trump stuck to the principles that European officials told me that President Trump declared this week to them that he would, cease-fire first, no decisions about Ukrainian land swaps without Zelenskyy making that decision, and, yes, Ukrainian security guarantees, if he stuck to those principles, and we got the sense that neither Putin nor Trump said there was a breakthrough, well, then those principles will remain a sticking point between the U.S., between Russia and the rest of Europe.

And so European officials will be waiting to hear how far President Trump went. They will be waiting for those calls just now probably. And they will respond to how far President Trump went and, frankly, how far Trump didn't go, perhaps, in terms of getting what Putin wanted him to agree to.

Amna Nawaz:

Nick Schifrin reporting from the site of that historic summit between Presidents Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska.

Nick Schifrin, thank you.