President Donald Trump walked into a summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin pressing for a ceasefire deal and threatening “severe consequences” and tough new sanctions if the Kremlin leader failed to agree to halt the fighting in Ukraine.

In Alaska, military parader President Donald Trump literally had U.S. soldiers on their knees to roll out the red carpet for wanted war criminal Vladimir Putin, who Trump greeted with applause as Putin played him like a pawn.

Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. A year later, the White House canceled a planned summit with Putin in Moscow, citing Russia's "disappointing decision" to grant asylum to national security leaker Edward Snowden and a lack of progress in the U.S.-Russia bilateral agenda.