Trump and Putin to Meet in Alaska: High-Stakes Talks on Ukraine Peace Deal [Image by BBC News]
(The Post News)- United States President Donald Trump declared that he will meet in a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska next Friday, August 15, to discuss putting an end to the war in Ukraine and said any peace treaty would involve Ukraine surrendering territory to Russia.
The announcement was made via Trump’s Truth Social account and later was confirmed by Kremlin spokesman Yury Ushakov, who called Alaska “a logical location” given the closeness to Russia. The summit would be the first U.S.–Russia presidential encounter since 2021 when Joe Biden and Putin met in Geneva.
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Speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump gave the opinion that only through some swapping of lands to the advantage of both Russia and Ukraine could the war now at its fourth year be stopped, without further explanation. US media said the White House is quietly urging European allies to consider a plan under which Russia would keep Crimea and the whole Donbas region and leave the partially occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Bloomberg reports that U.S. and Russian leaders are negotiating a pact to halt Moscow’s advance in exchange for these concessions, a politically volatile offer in Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has again and again rebuffed any agreement entailing territorial concessions, finding such terms unacceptable.
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk told Reuters on Friday that there were “signals” that a ceasefire in the conflict could be imminent, but he added it was not yet the end of the war. He spoke of Zelenskyy being “cautious but optimistic” in recent negotiations.
The meeting follows months of mixed messages from Trump, who has in one moment praised Putin and in the next publicly chastised him for consistent missile and drone attacks in Ukrainian cities. Last month, Trump set a deadline of August 8 for Russia to approve a ceasefire or face secondary sanctions. The deadline passed with no new U.S. measures, although this week he imposed a 25% tariff hike on India for its imports of Russian oil.
Putin, however, has rejected a meeting with Zelenskyy in the current situation, calling for Ukraine to subscribe to neutrality, shrink its military, and demobilize occupied regions before negotiating can start.
The Alaska summit next week, if it occurs, will be Trump’s first in-person summit with Putin since 2019 and potentially lead to the most important U.S.–Russia talks in years.
Ukraine remains to respond to the planned meeting.
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