John Bolton, President Trump’s former national security advisor, doubled down on his view that the president’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska will not result in a peace deal. 

“I don’t think there’s a peace deal anywhere in the near future,” Bolton told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday.

“As long as Putin is advancing on the battlefield, even if it’s three yards in a cloud of dust, he’s not going to give up anything if he can get away with it,” he added. “And I think here, I think the White House has lowered expectations precisely for the reason that it’s too complicated to handle here.”

Trump is meeting with Putin after greeting him at the airport earlier on Friday, shaking hands with the Eastern European leader. Days before the meeting, the White House lowered expectations around the talks, calling the historic meeting a “listening session” and “feel-out meeting.”

Trump this week also promised European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he would not negotiate giving up any Ukrainian territory with Vladimir Putin. 

“They’ll be discussed, but I’ve got to let Ukraine make that decision. And I think they’ll make a proper decision. But I’m not here to negotiate for Ukraine. I’m here to get them at a table,” Trump said on Friday about Ukrainian territories.

Bolton, in his Friday CNN interview, continued to criticize Trump strategy on the Russia-Ukraine war. 

“And I think the real measure of what we do here is to consider the failures of the past three and a half years, to have a strategy on our side to do what was the stated position of every NATO member, the full restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said. 

Bolton previously argued that the meeting is benefiting Russia.

Putin’s visit to Alaska is first time on U.S. soil since 2015.

“I think Putin has the initiative here, and I think his — what he’s going to try to do is show to Trump that he has a peace plan and that it’s sincere, even though I don’t think it will be,” he said on Wednesday on CNN’s “AC360″ with Anderson Cooper.

The Trump administration is taking a page out of Ukraine’s playbook when it comes to drone warfare, according to the Pentagon’s chief technology officer.

Emil Michael, the under secretary of Defense for research and engineering, said Russia’s more than three-year invasion of Ukraine has shown the new trajectory of warfare, one that the U.S. and the rest of the world is learning from.

“When you see Ukraine and Russia, that’s more likely that sort of trajectory of warfare where the front lines are not humans and tanks, the front lines are machines and robots figuring out how to counter each other. And that’s a big lesson,” he told NewsNation’s Mills Hayes. 

Michael was speaking from Indiana during the Technology Readiness Experimentation (TREX) event – a days-long demonstration of new, cutting-edge military technology in which defense companies and engineers test prototypes of war technology in front of U.S. military leaders.

The Trump administration is using such events to figure out how to quickly equip troops with small, easily replaced drones, an action it struggles with compared to the likes of adversaries including China, Russia and Iran.

While the United States has mastered the development of large, complex and expensive unmanned aircraft such as the Predator and Reaper, its industrial base has struggled to keep up on producing the smaller, inexpensive drones that have come to define the conflicts in Ukraine and Middle East.

But Michael said the Pentagon has learned a few things from the Russia-Ukraine war, including that it’s the warfighters as much as defense companies that will need to be part of what he calls “the innovation loop,” or adjusting drone technology to fit the current conflict. 

“These drones are changing in capabilities every three-to-four weeks, which is staggering, right?” said Michael, referring to Ukraine’s development of new drone types and tactics in the war, including swarm capabilities – forcing both sides to develop countermeasures and adapt their strategies. 

“The warfighters, the people who are actually operating these drones are the ones who are actually improving them. They’re in some cases writing software. They’re saying, ‘well, what if we do this?’ And they’re doing the experimentation at the very lowest level of the warfighter,” he said. “That’s a totally new way of thinking.”

The on-the-ground spontaneity is a departure from the typical route of a large weapons system being delivered to U.S. troops, who are trained on how to use them ahead of time.

“Now we’re going to rely on the warfighters to be part of the innovation loop. And that’s what the war in Ukraine and Russia taught us,” Michael said. 

Drones are the new front line of modern conflicts, featuring prominently in Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s conflicts in the Middle East.

That was on full display in June with Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb. In that operation, Kyiv for months smuggled hundreds of small drones deep inside Russia for a coordinated strike that destroyed upwards of 40 Russian warplanes on five airbases across the country.

Drone also make up for a large amount of casualties in Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian cities, which have only grown in intensity since earlier this year.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said the Friday summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin signals “all is forgiven.”

“He is standing with the most powerful person in the world, and it is a sign from Donald Trump, essentially, that all is forgiven,” Murphy said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.

“And so, this is a big moment for Putin, because he essentially is being legitimized in the eyes of the United States and in the eyes of the world,” he added. 

The senator said there wasn’t going to be “any breakthrough” because Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not present for peace talks.

“We know there’s not going to be any major peace deal here, largely because one of the parties to the war isn’t at the table,” he said.

“You can’t sign a peace agreement if Zelensky isn’t there. And so, there’s not going to be any breakthrough,” he added.

Many have doubted Putin’s intentions at the summit, suggesting the Russian leader has the upper hand and will use face time with Trump to occupy more of Ukraine.

Talks between the two commenced at 3:30 p.m. EDT after a press conference where Trump and Putin were seated in front of a backdrop that read “Pursuing Peace.”

Before the meeting, the president wrote “HIGH STAKES” in a Truth Social post.

Murphy deemed the meetup a “photo op.”

“My worry is that while the photo op in and of itself essentially legitimizes war crimes, telegraphs to other autocrats or evil men around the world that they can get away with murdering civilians and still get a photo op with the president of the United States, it could get worse,” he told MSNBC.

“Because if there is no agreement, if Putin thumbs his nose at Trump, and then Trump does not follow through with more weapons for Ukraine or with any sanctions, then it’s essentially the final green light to Putin that he is going to be able to prosecute this war without reaction from the United States.”