United States President Donald Trump has confirmed he will meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on August 15 in Alaska to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine
But, Trump added, any peace deal would involve “some swapping” of territory, a controversial prospect.
“We are going to have a meeting with Russia. We’ll start off with Russia,” he said on Friday, as he hosted leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House.
Trump offered few details on what, if anything, had changed in his months-long effort to bring about a deal to end Russia’s invasion.
Still, he suggested any breakthrough would require the exchange of territory.
“It’s very complicated. But we’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched. There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we’ll be talking about that either later or tomorrow,” he said.
Ukraine and its European allies have long opposed any agreement that involves ceding occupied territory – including Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – to Russia.
But Putin has repeatedly said that any deal must require Ukraine to relinquish some of the territories Russia has seized since 2014.
He has also called for a pause to Western aid for Ukraine and an end to Kyiv’s efforts to join the NATO military alliance.
Questions about the meeting’s location
Still, the prospect of Trump meeting Putin has raised logistical questions in recent days, particularly since the Russian leader faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Prosecutors have sought his arrest for alleged war crimes perpetrated in Ukraine, and Putin’s travel through any ICC member countries could result in his detention.
The US, however, is not an ICC member and does not recognise the court’s authority.
While the Kremlin had previously floated the possibility of meeting in the United Arab Emirates, another non-member, Trump announced on Friday in a Truth Social post that he would welcome Putin to the US northernmost state, Alaska.
The state’s mainland sits approximately 88 kilometres – or 55 miles – away from Russia across the Bering Strait, and some smaller islands are even closer.
Friday’s announcement came on the same day as a deadline that Trump had imposed on Russia to reach a ceasefire passed without any new agreement.
In recent weeks, Trump had grown increasingly frustrated with Russia over the country’s continued attacks on Ukraine and its apparent unwillingness to come to an accord.
The August 15 meeting is slated to be the first tete-a-tete between the two leaders since 2019, during Trump’s first term.
‘Great progress’
Trump had broken with decades of diplomatic precedent by seeming to embrace Putin during much of his time in the White House.
Earlier this year, for instance, Trump appeared to reject Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in favour of Putin. He also blamed Ukraine’s ambitions of joining NATO for provoking Russia’s full-scale invasion of its territory in February 2022.
“Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump yelled at one point during a confrontational meeting with Zelenskyy broadcast from the White House in February.
But Trump has positioned himself as a self-described “peacemaker”, and his inability to bring the Ukraine war to a close has become a source of resentment between him and Putin.
At the same time, he took an initially permissive approach to Putin, but has since expressed growing frustration with the Russian leader amid Russia’s continued attacks.
Last week, Trump denounced Russia’s renewed attacks on Kyiv. “I think it’s disgusting what they’re doing. I think it’s disgusting,” he said.
He also demanded that Russia pause its attacks or face new sanctions and secondary tariffs on key trading partners.
On Wednesday, Trump appeared to begin to make good on that threat, raising tariffs on Indian goods to 50 percent in response to its purchase of Russian oil.
Still, this week, Trump hailed “great progress” in the peace negotiations as his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, visited Putin in Moscow.
But as of Friday, the date of the new deadline, no new US actions or Russian capitulations had been announced.
Some analysts have argued that Putin is intentionally teasing out talks to extend the war.
