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.

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.

Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Trump in Washington on Monday to discuss 'ending the war' with President Donald Trump

Putin strolled down a red carpet on the tarmac at Elmendorf Air Force Base, met with Trump’s applause and a guard of honour. As they posed for pictures, F-22 fighters and a B-2 bomber flew overhead. A Russian vehicle waited on the tarmac for Putin,

The meeting represented a diplomatic victory for Putin after Western leaders ostracized him at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Just a week earlier, Trump was threatening him with new sanctions.