President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia met Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, for the first face-to-face meeting between American and Russian leaders since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.

Melania Trump took the unique step of crafting a letter that calls for peace in Ukraine, having her husband President Donald Trump hand-deliver it to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their Friday meeting in Alaska.

“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 net effect of the Alaska summit was to give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a free pass to continue his war against his neighbor indefinitely without further penalty, pending talks on a broader peace deal.

President Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin are holding a joint news conference after a more than 2 1/2-hour meeting in Alaska.

Donald Trump said Ukraine should make a deal to end the war because "Russia is a very big power, and they're not", after hosting a summit where Vladimir Putin was reported to have demanded more Ukrainian land.

Trump’s abandoning a ceasefire as a requirement for further negotiations aligns him with a position held by Putin.

Trump promised during his campaign that he would end Russia’s war on Ukraine on his first day back in office, which is now 207 days ago.