The president talked up his connection with Russian leader Vladimir Putin after a summit between the two failed to secure a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire.

By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) -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.

Former NSC Chief of Staff Fred Fleitz discusses the ramifications of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska and the next phase of efforts to end the war in Ukraine on ‘Fox News Live.’

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.

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.

"The rational world is behaving irrationally by giving him this welcome," she said. Putin's plane had been escorted into the airbase in Alaska by four American fighter jets and as he strolled down the red carpet,

U.S. President Donald Trump said he would not negotiate on behalf of Ukraine in his Friday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and would let Kyiv decide whether to engage in territorial swaps with Russia.