The summit was a win-win for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Not only has he managed to avoid US sanctions being imposed on Russia and secondary tariffs on its trading partners, as US President Donald Trump had threatened only a week ago, it now appears that he has convinced the US President that a ceasefire is not necessary to end the war in Ukraine.
Mr Trump's latest comment on Truth Social said it all: "The best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement."
Going straight to a peace agreement jettisons, what has been until now, a shared US, Ukrainian and European policy that a ceasefire must be agreed first before any substantial peace talks take place on the key issue of occupied territory.
Russia opposed US ceasefire proposals in March and April so the logical conclusion is that Mr Putin convinced Mr Trump during their three-hour meeting to drop the idea of a ceasefire.
We can expect Mr Trump to place pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to entering peace talks soon when they meet in Washington on Monday.
Only last Tuesday all EU member states except Hungary endorsed a statement that only "meaningful negotiations" can take place "in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities".
The UK shares the same position.
Mr Trump's 180-degree turn will cause unease in Europe but it is hard to see how European leaders can now bring the conversation back to the need to first establish a ceasefire.
With little choice but to accept the Trump administration's new approach to ending the war, European leaders and Mr Zelensky are now focusing on calling for security guarantees for Ukraine.
This morning’s joint statement from the leaders of the France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council Antonio Costa read:
"We are clear that Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity."
"No limitations should be placed on Ukraine’s armed forces or on its cooperation with third countries. Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine's pathway to EU and NATO."
European leaders also declared that only Ukraine can make decisions about its territory, and that international borders must not be changed by force, which has been Europe’s position (and that of the previous Biden administration) since Russia invaded.
This is Europe shaping up for peace talks and issuing diplomatic redlines to Moscow, which it will duly oppose.
During Mr Putin’s speech to the press corps in Alaska yesterday, he said Russia expected Kyiv and European capitals to not "throw a wrench in the works".
In other words, the Russian leader was warning Europe not to try and dissuade the US from working towards direct peace talks.
The next step for Europe and Ukraine is to gain clarity from Washington on the kind of role the US could play in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security.
In March, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposed extending NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee to Ukraine and it was reported that Mr Trump discussed this option with European leaders on their call this morning.
Article 5 is the central component of NATO membership, spelling out that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
How exactly extending an Article 5-type assurance would work for a non-NATO member is not known.
A diplomatic source told AFP that Mr Putin had "supposedly agreed" to this non-NATO Article 5 proposal during the meeting.
Why Mr Putin would agree to an arrangement is also unclear given that Russia wants Ukraine to drop its ambitions to join NATO.
And, as last week’s talks in Moscow between Mr Putin and US special envoy Steve Witkoff showed, the detail can be lost in translation.
Strong Western security guarantees, that involve the US, would make Russia think twice about invading Ukraine again, which is very possible.
The focus on security guarantees has also brought the 'Coalition of the Willing', a British and French-led initiative to deploy a European peace monitoring force to Ukraine after a potential peace deal, back into play.
Mindful of keeping Mr Trump onside, the group of European leaders also praised his efforts "to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia's war of aggression and achieve just and lasting peace".
But the warm welcome given by Mr Trump to Mr Putin in Alaska, the all-round pally atmosphere of the event, and the US president’s acceptance of Russia’s demand to drop calls for a ceasefire suggests that the direction of US-led peace talks has a better chance of following Russia’s agenda, not Europe’s.
Mr Putin also managed to make the summit more about US-Russia relations and shared business opportunities, rather than Ukraine.
Yesterday's press conference in Alaska lasted all of 12 minutes and journalists were granted no questions.
Mr Putin spoke for nine of those minutes, and delivered a rambling historical narrative about Alaska's Russian heritage and US-Russian cooperation during World War II.
No one had come to hear that.
When he did briefly mention, what he termed, "the situation around Ukraine", he stuck to his familiar script.
"We need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict, and we've said it multiple times," he said.
So Mr Trump's promise on Thursday to enact "very severe consequences" on Russia if it did not agree to a ceasefire during the Alaska meeting has come to nothing.
There was also no reported discussion on a new agreement on nuclear arms control, as Mr Putin had indicated the day prior to the summit.
Instead, Russia's leader came away from the summit with a commitment to go straight to peace talks without a ceasefire in place and that does not bode well for Ukraine.
Read more:
Trump-Putin summit yields no deal on ending war in Ukraine
'High-stakes' summit of presidential pageantry ends in no deal
European leaders pledge support for trilateral meeting
