Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Alaska next Friday to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine.
Trump announced the planned meeting, scheduled for August 15, on social media. The Kremlin later confirmed the news, with its spokesperson saying the location was “mutually agreeable” given Alaska’s proximity to Russia.
Alaska, the northernmost state in the United States, is separated from Russia by the Bering Strait. The Kremlin also indicated that Trump has been invited to Russia for a second round of talks.
The announcement came just hours after Trump suggested that Ukraine might need to cede territory to end the war that Russia launched against its neighbor in February 2022.
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Speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump said:
“You’re talking about land that’s been fought over for three and a half years, with heavy losses on both sides. Many Russians have died, and many Ukrainians have died. It’s not easy at all. We will recover some of the land, and some of it will have to be given up. There will need to be territorial concessions for the good of both sides.”
Trump did not disclose specific details of what a peace deal might look like.
According to CBS News, which partners with the BBC in the U.S., the White House is trying to persuade European leaders to back an agreement that would see Ukraine cede the entire Donbas region to Russia while retaining Crimea. In exchange, Russia would withdraw from the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which it partially occupies.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Putin had floated a similar idea to Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, during a recent meeting in Moscow.
It remains unclear whether Ukraine and its European allies would accept such a proposal. President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to firmly oppose territorial concessions to Russia.
A senior White House official told CBS that preparations for Friday’s meeting are going smoothly and that Zelensky might have some role in the process.
Moscow’s military campaign has so far failed to achieve the decisive victory it initially sought, though Russia controls roughly 20% of Ukraine’s territory. Ukraine’s counteroffensives have been unable to fully push Russian forces back.
Three rounds of talks between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul, Turkey, have failed to achieve a ceasefire. Kyiv and its allies argue that accepting Russia’s demands including neutrality, drastic military cuts, abandoning NATO aspirations, and lifting Western sanctions would amount to surrender.
Russia also wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from four partially occupied regions in southern and eastern Ukraine and to demobilize them.
On Friday, Trump reiterated that the U.S. has “a chance” to broker a peace deal acceptable to all three sides.
“European leaders want peace. President Putin, I know he wants peace. In addition, Zelensky wants peace. But President Zelensky needs to get everything he can, because he will have to sign some kind of agreement, and I think he’s holding firm to make that possible.”
Last month, Trump told the BBC he believed a peace deal should have been reached “four different times” since the war began, adding:
“Putin’s a tough guy, but I’m not finished with him yet.”
In recent weeks, the Kremlin’s tone shifted, with Moscow initially giving itself an August 8 deadline to accept a ceasefire or face further sanctions. But as that date approached, the focus turned instead to Trump’s proposed face-to-face talks with Putin.
No new sanctions against Russia were announced by the White House on Friday.
Trump and Putin last spoke by phone in February — their first direct conversation since the start of the war. The last time a U.S. president met Putin in person was in 2021, when Joe Biden held talks with him in Geneva, Switzerland.
