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.

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

US President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin made “great progress” but did not emerge from yesterday’s summit in Alaska with an agreement on the war in Ukraine. Follow for live updates.

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

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 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.

President Donald Trump said on social media Saturday that a deal better than “a mere Ceasefire” is in the works with Vladimir Putin, hours after Trump’s high-stakes summit with the Russian leader in Alaska failed to produce an agreement to halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.