After leaving Alaska, Trump says he would prefer to "go directly to a peace agreement" to end the war in Ukraine as he prepares to meet Zelensky on Monday.

In Alaska, military parader President Donald Trump literally had U.S. soldiers on their knees to roll out the red carpet for wanted war criminal Vladimir Putin, who Trump greeted with applause as Putin played him like a pawn.

President Donald Trump walked into a summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin pressing for a ceasefire deal and threatening “severe consequences” and tough new sanctions if the Kremlin leader failed to agree to halt the fighting in Ukraine.

Lawmakers retreated to their partisan corners in response to the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, with Republicans praising the president and Democrats arguing he was too cozy with Putin.

The high-stakes summit at the Anchorage Air Force base comes as the U.S. seeks a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war.

The US president said a peace agreement would be better than a "mere" ceasefire, hours after summit with Putin that produced little.

In a summit meeting marked by red carpets, handshakes and military flyovers, President Vladimir Putin made his first trip to the United States in a decade and was greeted warmly by President Donald Trump.

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.