US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin ended in Alaska without a deal on halting Moscow’s war on Ukraine, but it did give the Russian president a “diplomatic win” after years of being shunned by the West, observers said.The Russian president was greeted with a red carpet and a warm handshake from President Trump on arrival at a US airbase in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday as both leaders arrived for talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.It marked President Putin’s first time stepping on Western soil since he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and was notable in its welcoming atmosphere compared with the frosty reception a hostile Trump laid on for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in February.Taking to a stage to deliver remarks after they spoke behind closed doors for less than three hours, the two leaders said they had made progress on unspecified issues, offering no details and taking no questions from a phalanx of assembled international reporters and television cameras.A visibly upbeat Putin was the first to speak, telling how he had greeted Trump on his arrival in Anchorage with the lines: “Good afternoon, dear neighbour”, owing to the geographic closeness of Alaska to Russia.“We are close neighbours, and it’s a fact,” Putin said.Putin said his meeting with Trump was “long overdue” and that he “hoped the agreement that we’ve reached together will help us bring close that goal and will pave the path toward …
