Under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in return for a Russian pledge to freeze the front lines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the sources said.

Speaking after Friday’s summit, President Putin again implied that the war is all about Russia’s diminished status since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In a shift, Trump now aligns more closely with Putin than allies in Europe in calling for final talks before a ceasefire

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 Trump said that he and Russia's Vladimir Putin made progress in talks to end the war in Ukraine, but the two leaders did not announce any steps toward reaching a ceasefire.

Russia already controls a fifth of Ukraine, including about three-quarters of Donetsk province, which it first entered in 2014.

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.

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.

In a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, first lady Melania Trump urged him to think about the future for world's children