Russia says US has failed to honor Alaska summit understandings

Russia’s top officials are publicly pressing Washington over what they say were understandings struck by Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska last August, a sign that the Kremlin’s earlier praise for Trump’s diplomacy has given way to open frustration. Over three days, three senior Russian officials said the United States had not followed through, but none spelled out what the understandings covered.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said only one side had remained committed to the Anchorage understandings, using the Alaska city’s name as shorthand for the summit’s diplomatic legacy. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov went further, suggesting the meeting may have been a U.S. “ploy to buy time to rearm the Kyiv regime.” Lavrov’s deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, said Washington had departed from the fundamental understandings reached in Alaska, while adding that dialogue would continue.

The complaints came as Ukraine intensified drone strikes deep inside Russia, including repeated hits on the Moscow oil refinery. A drone attack on June 16 started a fire at the refinery, the largest fuel supplier to the Moscow region, and two industry sources said it halted operations. Ukraine struck the refinery again on June 18 in a larger attack that hit more than a dozen Russian regions and disrupted flights at Moscow airports. Russian forces have kept up heavy attacks of their own.

Trump’s own rhetoric has also shifted. In September 2025, he said Ukraine could retake all its territory occupied by Russia and called Russia in “big” economic trouble, a sharp break from earlier pressure on Kyiv to make concessions. There was no immediate sign of a matching U.S. policy shift, such as new sanctions, and that gap has deepened Moscow’s suspicion that Washington’s line can move without warning.

Lavrov said on June 23 that Russia was ready to resume peace negotiations with Ukraine at any time from where they left off, a public signal that Moscow still wants to keep the door open even as it accuses Washington of failing to honor the Alaska understanding. The result is a widening trust gap around a summit whose details remain vague, but whose aftereffects are now being used as leverage in a war still being fought on the ground and in the air.