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.

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.

Oil prices slipped on Monday as the U.S. did not exert more pressure on Russia to end the Ukraine war by implementing further measures to disrupt Russian oil exports after the presidents from both countries met on Friday.

Donald Trump is reportedly planning to urge Ukraine to surrender the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as part of negotiations over an end to the war.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who sat in on the meetings with Mr. Putin at the American air base outside of Anchorage, disputed the idea that the Europeans were coming as a posse to protect Mr. Zelensky from a repeat of the February shouting match.

President Donald Trump is meeting with Vladimir Putin, and security analysts caution that China views the talks as a test case for potential aggression in the Indo-Pacific region.

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.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, an envoy for President Trump, suggested that a peace deal was still distant.