It was a welcome tailored for a close friend, not a war criminal, and it looked to the Ukrainians like their nightmare.

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.

President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for almost three hours on Friday in Alaska. After, the pair held a joint news conference where they shared that they did not reach an agreement on a pathway to end Russia’s war against Ukraine but they agreed on many points.