One key party not be in attendance Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump said after his meeting with the Russian president that he would call Zelenskyy and update him on the talks.

In a few short hours in Alaska, Vladimir Putin managed to convince Donald Trump that a Ukraine ceasefire was not the way to go, stave off U.S. sanctions, and spectacularly shatter years of Western attempts to isolate the Russian president.

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.

As he heads to Alaska for talks with President Trump, the Russian leader projects confidence that his edge on the battlefield will secure a peace deal on his terms. It’s the result of a yearslong re-engineering of his country’s military and economy.