Trump, Putin to discuss Ukraine war in Alaska summit
U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, will meet on August 15 in Alaska to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine, AFP reports.
It will be the first meeting between the two leaders since Trump’s return to the White House.
Trump announced on his Truth Social platform on Friday that the "much-anticipated meeting" with Putin would take place on August 15. This was later confirmed by a Kremlin spokesperson, who stated that the location was "quite logical," given Alaska's relative proximity to Russia.
The spokesperson added that Trump had been invited to Russia for a potential follow-up summit.
There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine.
The meeting announcement came just hours after Trump had signaled that Ukraine might have to cede territory to end the war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
This meeting will be the first between the two leaders since their June 2019 meeting in Japan, which occurred a year after the Helsinki summit, where Donald Trump took a decidedly conciliatory tone with the Kremlin strongman. Putin has not set foot on American soil since 2015, when he did so during the presidency of Barack Obama.
Trump mentioned a possible "territory swap" between Ukraine and Russia as part of a future agreement between the two warring countries, without specifying the progress made on this issue by the parties involved, AFP reported, according to Agerpres.
"There will be territory swaps for the benefit of each, but we will talk about this later or tomorrow," he said at the White House, adding that "it's complicated, it's not that easy."
"We're talking about a territory that's been affected by fighting for over three and a half years... we're going to recover a part of it," he added, without giving further details.
Russia wants Crimea and the entire eastern Donbas region.
Sources told Bloomberg that Putin wants Ukraine to cede the entire eastern Donbas region to Russia, as well as Crimea, which his forces illegally annexed in 2014.
This would require Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to order the withdrawal of troops from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, thus giving Russia a victory that its army has been unable to achieve militarily since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Digi24.ro reported.
Such an outcome would represent a major victory for Putin, who has long sought direct negotiations with the U.S. on terms to end the war he started three years ago, effectively sidelining Ukraine and its European allies.
It is unclear whether Moscow is prepared to give up the territories it currently occupies, which include the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest.
In exchange, Russia would halt its offensive in Ukraine's Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions along the current front lines as part of the agreement, the sources said. They warned that the terms and plans of the agreement are still being negotiated and are subject to change.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also did not respond to a request for comment. Ukraine also refused to comment on the proposals, according to Bloomberg.
The deal essentially aims to freeze the war, paving the way for a ceasefire and further technical discussions on a definitive peace agreement, the sources said.
The United States had previously insisted that Russia first agree to an unconditional ceasefire to create space for negotiations on ending the war.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
