US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin are meeting face-to-face for a historic summit on Friday. Anchorage in the US state of Alaska is the venue for the upcoming meeting, two White House officials said.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Trump and Putin summit:
Where and when is the summit happening?
Although the exact location of the Trump-Putin summit is yet not known, it will take place in Alaska on Friday.
Putin will be visiting the US for the first time since 2015, when he was in New York for the UN General Assembly. The US is not required to arrest the Russian president since it is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which in 2023 issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes.
The White House wanted to avoid the awkwardness of hosting Putin and his team on a US military base, but ultimately, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on Anchorage’s northern edge, in Alaska was their only option that fit the tough security standards needed for such an important meeting.
That snag highlighted just how frantic preparations are for Friday’s summit, which will be the first meeting between the US and Russian leaders in over four years. With time running out, American and Russian officials are scrambling to finalise the details of what the meeting will actually look like.
On Tuesday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov got on a phone call to sort out some of the planning details.
Usually, a big meeting like this with a US rival involves long negotiations to figure out the agenda and goals. But Trump himself has made it clear he’s treating this as more of an informal, “feel out” session—not going in with high expectations. The White House even called it a “listening session.”
Rubio explained the US president’s reasoning behind why Trump’s five known phone calls with Putin this year wouldn’t suffice in determining the Russian leader’s intentions in a radio interview on Tuesday with Sid Rosenberg. “The president feels like, ‘look, I’ve got to look at this guy across the table. I need to see him face to face. I need to hear him one-on-one. I need to make an assessment by looking at him’,” he said.
It remains to be seen if the summit can result in a ceasefire for Ukraine more than three and a half years after Moscow’s invasion.
Why has Alaska been chosen as the venue?
Alaska was a part of the Czarist empire until 1867, but this will be the first time a Russian leader has visited the state, according to the state news agency Tass.
Alaska was a Russian colony from the 18th century until Czar Alexander II sold it to the US in 1867 for $7.2 million. It was viewed as a naïve agreement that led to regret, when it was discovered to have a wealth of resources. Alaska became the focus of Russian nostalgia and humour following the fall of the USSR.
Prof Samuel Greene, who teaches Russian Politics at King’s College London and is the director of Democratic Resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) said that the significance of the symbolic meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska, was “horrendous.”
Is Zelenskyy attending the meeting?
Despite early indications that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may attend, both nations confirmed a meeting between Putin and Trump alone. However, the Kremlin has always opposed Putin’s meeting with Zelenskyy, at least until Russia and Ukraine reach a peace deal that is ready to be signed.
Last week, Putin said that he was not opposed to seeing Zelenskyy, but that it was “still a long way off” and that “certain conditions need to be created” for it.
This sparked concerns about Ukraine being left out of the talks. In a conversation with European allies last week, Ukrainian authorities emphasised that Kyiv’s participation is essential to achieving peace.
Agenda of the Trump-Putin summit
Russia’s failure to stop the bombardment of Ukrainian cities has made Trump seem more and more frustrated with Putin. As a first step towards peace, Kyiv has consented to a ceasefire, however insisting on a truce as a first step.
Zelenskyy rejected Moscow’s ceasefire conditions, which included suspending Western arms supplies, stopping mobilisation efforts, and removing soldiers from the four areas Russia unlawfully acquired in 2022.
Putin wants Kyiv give up Crimea and the annexed areas, which Russia does not fully control, give up its bid to join NATO, reduce the strength of its military. Besides, he also wants recognition of Russian as an official language alongside Ukrainian in order to achieve a more comprehensive peace deal.
Zelenskyy maintains that in order to shield Ukraine against further Russian aggression, any peace agreements must include strong security assurances for the country.
As Russian forces advance into other areas to establish what he called a “buffer zone,” Putin has warned Ukraine that the circumstances for peace will become more difficult. Some analysts noted that Russia would exchange those recent gains for Ukrainian-controlled territory in the four Moscow-annexed regions.
“Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday.
However, Trump said on Monday, “There’ll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody. To the good, for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff. Also, some bad stuff for both.”
What to look forward to
Putin sees the meeting with Trump as an opportunity to solidify Russia’s territorial gains, prevent Ukraine from hosting any Western troops, and keep Ukraine out of NATO so Moscow can progressively reintegrate Ukraine into its orbit.
As swarms of Moscow’s missiles and drones bombard the nation, Ukrainian soldiers are fighting to stop Russian advances along the front line, and he thinks time is on his side.
For Putin, who has been isolated since the invasion, the meeting is a diplomatic victory. The Kremlin attempted to present the re-established US ties as two superpowers seeking to address a number of international issues, Ukraine being only one of them.
Concerns have been raised by Ukraine and its European allies that a summit without Kyiv may give Putin the opportunity to win Trump over and pressure Ukraine into making compromises.