What to know about the Putin-Trump summit in Alaska

The U.S.-Russia summit in Alaska is happening at a site where East meets West – quite literally – in a place familiar to both countries as a Cold War front line of missile defense, radar outposts and intelligence gathering.

Whether it can lead to a deal to produce peace in Ukraine more than 3 1/2 years after Moscow’s invasion remains to be seen.

Here’s what to know about the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, the first summit in four years:

The summit will take place Friday in Alaska, although where in the state is still unknown.

It will be Putin’s first trip to the United States since 2015, for the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Since the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court, which in 2023 issued a warrant for Putin on war crimes accusations, it is under no obligation to arrest him.

Both countries confirmed a meeting between only Putin and Trump, even though there were initial suggestions that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy might be part of it. But the Kremlin has long pushed back against Putin meeting Zelenskyy — at least until a peace deal is reached by Russia and Ukraine and was ready to be signed.

Putin said last week he wasn’t against meeting Zelenskyy “but certain conditions need to be created” for it to happen and were “still a long way off.”

That raised fears about excluding Ukraine from negotiations. Ukrainian officials last week talked with European allies, who stressed that peace cannot be achieved without Kyiv’s involvement.

It will be the first visit by a Russian leader to Alaska, even though it was part of the czarist empire until 1867, the state news agency Tass said.

Alaska was colonized by Russia starting from the 18th century until Czar Alexander II sold it to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million. When it was found to contain vast resources, it was seen as a naïve deal that generated remorse and self-reproach.

After the USSR’s collapse, Alaska was a subject of nostalgia and jokes for Russians. One popular song in the 1990s went: “Don’t play the fool, America … give back our dear Alaska land.”

Sam Greene of King’s College London said on X the symbolism of Alaska as the site of a summit about Ukraine was “horrendous – as though designed to demonstrate that borders can change, land can be bought and sold.”

Trump has appeared increasingly exasperated with Putin over Russia’s refusal to halt the bombardment of Ukrainian cities. Kyiv has agreed to a ceasefire, insisting on a truce as a first step toward peace.

Moscow presented ceasefire conditions that are nonstarters for Zelenskyy, such as withdrawing troops from the four regions Russia illegally annexed in 2022, halting mobilization efforts, or freezing Western arms deliveries. For a broader peace, Putin demands Kyiv cede the annexed regions, even though Russia doesn’t fully control them, and Crimea, renounce a bid to join NATO, limit the size of its armed forces and recognize Russian as an official language along with Ukrainian.

Zelenskyy insists any peace deals must include robust security guarantees for Ukraine to protect it from future Russian aggression.

Putin has warned Ukraine it will face tougher conditions for peace as Russian troops forge into other regions to build what he described as a “buffer zone.” Some observers suggested Russia could trade those recent gains for territory still under Ukrainian control in the four annexed regions annexed by Moscow.

Zelenskyy said Saturday that “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.”

But Trump said Monday: “There’ll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody. To the good, for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff. Also, some bad stuff for both.”

Putin sees a meeting with Trump as a chance to cement Russia’s territorial gains, keep Ukraine out of NATO and prevent it from hosting any Western troops so Moscow can gradually pull the country back into its orbit.

He believes time is on his side as Ukrainian forces are struggling to stem Russian advances along the front line amid swarms of Moscow’s missiles and drones battering the country.

The meeting is a diplomatic coup for Putin, isolated since the invasion. The Kremlin sought to portray renewed U.S. contacts as two superpowers looking to resolve various global problems, with Ukraine being just one.

Ukraine and its European allies are concerned a summit without Kyiv could allow Putin to get Trump on his side and force Ukraine into concessions.

“Any decisions that are without Ukraine are at the same time decisions against peace,” Zelenskyy said. “They will not bring anything. These are dead decisions. They will never work.”

European officials echoed that.

“As we work towards a sustainable and just peace, international law is clear: All temporarily occupied territories belong to Ukraine,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. “A sustainable peace also means that aggression cannot be rewarded.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Sunday he believed Trump was “making sure that Putin is serious, and if he is not, then it will stop there.”

“If he is serious, then from Friday onwards, the process will continue. Ukraine getting involved, the Europeans being involved,” Rutte added.

Since last week, Putin spoke to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as well as the leaders of South Africa, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, the Kremlin said.

That suggested Putin perhaps wanted to brief Russia’s most important allies about a potential settlement, said pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov.