By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) -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’s foreign envoy Steve Witkoff — one of three American participants in Friday’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin — described on Sunday several major agreements reached during the Alaska talks that he said created strong momentum toward a peace agreement with Ukraine.

Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the Kharkiv region expressed skepticism over diplomatic negotiations to the end the war in Ukraine after U.S.

Kyivstar shares dropped over 9% on Friday after the mobile operator became the first Ukrainian company to list in the United States, just hours before a summit between U.S. and Russian leaders to discuss a potential peace deal in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was not invited to the Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, but 1,000 Ukrainian refugees in Alaska will be watching with trepidation.

Trump will meet Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday as the U.S. leader hopes for a breakthrough in the three-and-a-half-year war, following previous negotiations involving his envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president's rejection of a U.S. ceasefire proposal.

As Trump and Putin prepare to meet in Alaska, Ukraine seeks assurances that its interests won't be sacrificed. Kyiv insists on a durable ceasefire, Russian reparations for war damages estimated up to $1 trillion,