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 said on social media Saturday that a deal better than “a mere Ceasefire” is in the works with Vladimir Putin, hours after Trump’s high-stakes summit with the Russian leader in Alaska failed to produce an agreement to halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

"This is a Russian tactic before any negotiations," Alina Alekseeva, the deputy head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, told the Kyiv Independent.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held calls on Saturday with his Turkish and Hungarian counterparts, the Russian foreign ministry said, hours after a summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents yielded no deal on ending the war in Ukraine.