Russian-American summit: Alaska next Friday: Trump receives Putin

US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin want to meet in the US state of Alaska on Friday (August 15). It would be the first personal encounter of a reigning US president with Putin since the summer of 2021. At that time, Trump’s democratic predecessor Joe Biden met the Kremlin chief in Geneva.

On Putin’s command, Russia has been a destructive war against Ukraine for around three and a half years. People die to this day. Many Ukrainians fled their homeland. A ceasefire – or even a peace closure – did not seem in sight recently.

Trump represents the summit as an attempt to get closer to the end of the fights. In this context, he threw a possible exchange of territory between Ukraine and Russia, but remained vague.

Moscow recently called for a peaceful solution to the conflict, among other things, a waiver of Ukraine on NATO accession and the assignment of the areas annexed by Russia. The Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj has so far categorically rejects the waiver of the Black Sea Peninsula Crimea annexed by Russia in 2014 and the areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Saporischschja and Cherson, some of which were controlled by Moscow.

Where’s the Selenskyj meeting?

It is still open whether there will also be a meeting between Putin and Selenskyj. The Ukrainian kept demanding such a conversation. Trump also emphasized the need for direct conversations between Moscow and Kiev at the highest level, but last said that they were not a prerequisite for meeting Putin himself. The Kremlin chief was rather behavior with a view to a possible three-way summit. He believes that such a meeting is possible, but the conditions for it are still far away, he explained last.

Shortly after the announcement of the meeting in Alaska, Moscow meanwhile brought a connection meeting between Putin and Trump into play – then in the Russian field.

When was Putin last in the USA?

That was a while ago: According to the US State Department, Putin was last in the United States in September 2015 to take part in the United Nations General Assembly in New York. There he also met US President Barack Obama. Strictly speaking, the United Nations does not belong to the USA, it is a territory with special status.

Do Trump and Putin know each other personally?

Yes. During his first term from 2017 to 2021, Trump and the Russian President saw each other several times, including 2019 at the G20 summit in Osaka in Japanese. Under Trump’s successor bidges, there was largely radio silence between Washington and Moscow in February 2022.

Since the beginning of his second term in January 2025, Trump has been a mediator for a peace solution that maintains a good connection to Putin. He distanced himself from the Bidens supporting course for Ukraine and also questioned US arms deliveries to the attacked country. He even goes so far to say that it is “bidens war”.

In the course of the past few months, Trump talked several times with Putin. Most recently, however, he was increasingly critical of the Kremlin boss. The fact that Putin agreed with the US President for a rapid reunion was therefore relatively surprising.

Didn’t Trump actually want to increase the pressure on Putin?

On July 29, Trump had set a period of ten days and asked for a ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev during this period. In the event that this should not occur, he announced sanctions against important trading partners in Russia – and was the first country to take India with new punitive tariffs because of its oil transactions with Moscow. However, these should only come into force on August 27th. The 10-day ultimate from the end of July now seems to have expired without Trump’s other states with new taxes in the context of the Ukraine War.

Isn’t there an international arrest warrant against Putin?

There is it, but it has no effect in the United States. The Ukrainian government accuses the Russian invaders of kidnapping thousands of children from the occupied areas – especially because of this, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrant against Putin in March 2023.

At the moment, this arrest warrant has a symbolic meaning: the court based in the Haag does not have its own police night to arrest the Kremlin chief. And unlike the European Union or Canada, which borders Alaska, neither the United States nor Russia recognizes the Court of Justice. Therefore, the United States is not obliged to act.

Media had speculated that the meeting could take place on neutral soil – you read and hear about countries such as the Vatican and the United Arab Emirates. Now it is different. Trump is a host, Putin comes as a guest. Alaska is the northernmost state of the United States. It is not that far from Russia – at the narrowest point it is only a few kilometers. The Meerenge Beringstrasse in the northern Pacific separates the area of Russian territory.

Alaska belonged to today’s Russia until the middle of the 19th century until the United States bought the area with many mineral resources to the then Empire. The place could also have very practical reasons: before the appointment, Trump said that he actually sought a much faster meeting, but there must be security measures. Planning on their own territory could also bring logistical advantages.