US President Donald Trump is meeting his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss the situation in Ukraine, as the world - including Ukraine President Zelensky - watches from the sidelines.
US President Donald Trump has touched down on Anchorage ahead of the meeting with Vladimir Putin.
However, Trump no longer plans to meet alone with the Russian president, and will now be joined by top aides throughout, the White House said.
Trump, instead of a previously planned one-on-one meeting, will be joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff before a larger meeting over lunch that will include other officials, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Air Force One.
Putin will also be joined by his foreign minister and foreign policy aide.
Anchorage, Alaska: the venue
Putin will be in the West for the first time since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. It is not only the format – a one-on-one meeting between the two presidents – that is controversial, but also the choice of location: on American soil, close to Russia. Critics see it as virtually a rehabilitation of the Russian president on the international stage.
Putin still has an outstanding arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, but he has nothing to fear during his trip, as the US does not recognise the Hague institution and is not expected to enforce it.
The summit will focus on the security of Ukraine and Europe – though none of the directly concerned parties will be at the table. While there were prior consultations with the US, it is hard to say how much influence Zelensky and the EU actually have. In recent months, Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to accommodate Vladimir Putin, at Ukraine’s expense. As recently as February, the Ukrainian president was humiliated in the Oval Office in Washington D.C., in front of rolling cameras.
The Kremlin expects the Alaska summit between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump to last at least six to seven hours, Russian state TV reported Friday.
"You can expect that it will take up a minimum of six to seven hours," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russia's Channel One state TV ahead of the summit, adding that Moscow anticipated a "productive" meeting.
The talks are scheduled to begin around 9pm (Luxembourg time).
This is a developing story, and more information will be added as it becomes available.
