Republican lawmakers have been overwhelmingly complimentary of President Donald Trump meeting with Vladimir Putin and attempting to put the Russian leader in a room with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Former NBC host Chuck Todd argued on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a "huge miscalculation" not giving President Donald Trump a "win" during the Alaska peace summit this week.

P resident Donald Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House for a high-stakes meeting as the U.S. president pushed for a deal to end Moscow's war on its neighbor. A host of European leaders joined the pair.

Doing so would require the Russian leader to “accept the failure of sitting down with a president he considers a joke from a country that doesn’t exist”

The Kremlin hasn't ruled out summits but has said they could only meet in the very final stages of clinching a peace agreement.

Melania Trump took the unique step of crafting a letter calling for peace in Ukraine, having her husband Donald Trump deliver it to Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine’s Donbas region, consisting of Donetsk and Luhansk, is at the heart of Moscow’s goals. An industrial powerhouse in the Soviet era, it also has rich farmland, important rivers and a coastline on the Sea of Azov.

Trump said he and the Russian leader spoke last week about what they see as the problems with mail-in voting. Since then, Trump has pushed again for the U.S. to end the practice.

Special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff says Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed to allow the U.S. and Europe to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO's collective defense mandate.