At what was billed as an “historic” presidential summit, hastily put together in Alaska on Friday afternoon, the optics were as clear and overshadowing as the vast Chugach mountains glistening over Anchorage in the summer sun.

Trump and Putin met at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday afternoon to discuss an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine, which began more than three years ago. The pair announced “great progress” had been made, but they still did not reach any kind of plan to end the war.

As President Trump touched down in Anchorage on Friday to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over the war in Ukraine, that country’s leader, President Volodymyr Zelensky, criticized continuing Russian strikes as a sign that Moscow was not prepared to end the conflict.