Trump, Putin Meeting Underway at Ukraine Summit in Alaska
Reporters later saw the two in a room with their aides, as the discussions formally began, but the leaders did not take any questions. Alongside Trump were US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff, while Putin was joined by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.
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Moments earlier, Trump had greeted Putin with a warm handshake and a pat on the arm in their first face-to-face encounter of the US president's second term. The two leaders disembarked from their planes, walking across the tarmac to red carpets before meeting in a highly choreographed opening. Trump clapped as he watched Putin approach.
Trump and Putin paused for a moment to watch a flyover and the US president was seen putting his hand on the Russian leader's back as they walked down a set of steps. The two leaders appeared to be engaged in friendly conversation as they entered the Beast, as the US president's armored limousine is known, and departed.
The Russian leader was seen laughing as the vehicle departed as he began a visit that marked his first invitation to the US in nearly a decade.
The haphazard nature of the quickly arranged meeting was apparent from the start. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that a previously planned one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin would be a three-on-three session with aides participating. Still, the ride in the presidential vehicle to the summit site allowed Putin time to speak with Trump without their large coterie of aides present, giving him valuable one-on-one time with the US leader.
A joint press conference with Trump and Putin is planned for after their meeting. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier the discussions could last 6-7 hours, according to Interfax.
Friday's summit being held at a US military facility, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, is laden with peril for Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to quickly end Europe's deadliest war in decades — but also opportunity for a president who has repeatedly cast himself as the only leader who can deliver peace.
The president has downplayed expectations for the summit, claiming that he envisions it as a 'feel-out' discussion laying the groundwork for a second more important meeting that could include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and potentially European allies and where Moscow and Kyiv could 'make a deal.' And he's sought to dispel anxiety in European capitals that he may concede too much to Putin or strike a deal that involves exchanging territory or Ukraine ceding land without the input of Kyiv.
In an interview earlier Friday with Fox News' Bret Baier aboard Air Force One, Trump insisted he would 'walk away' if the talks with Putin did not go well. The US president also told reporters that he may provide security guarantees to Ukraine 'along with Europe and other countries,' but added 'not in the form of NATO.' Trump has long said that Ukraine may need to agree to swap land with Russia, but said it was not his decision to make.
'I've got to let Ukraine make that decision,' Trump said of land swaps. 'I'm not here to negotiate for Ukraine. I'm here to get them at the table.'
For Putin, the visit has already delivered a win. An international pariah since he launched the full-scale invasion of his neighbor in 2022, Putin is being welcomed on US soil without having made any concessions, giving him his best chance to reset ties between Washington and Moscow in recent years. The Russian president has had little incentive to stop the fighting, confident that his military holds a dominant position on the battlefield as it slowly advances in a brutal, grinding war.
Putin launched a full-court charm offensive ahead of the summit, praising the US leader for 'energetic and sincere efforts' to stop the war and floating the prospect of renewed economic cooperation and a new arms control treaty, playing to Trump who regularly casts himself as a peacemaker and dealmaker.
Putin's entourage is expected to include finance ministers. The Russian president has been eager to divide the US from Europe and seek sanctions relief for an economy at home that may be on the verge of slipping into a recession.
'I noticed he's bringing a lot of business people from Russia, and that's good. I like that because they want to do business,' Trump told reporters on Air Force One. 'But they're not doing business until we get the war settled.'
Trump's team is set to also include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Still, the risk for Ukraine and others in Europe is that Putin makes a sales pitch Trump finds hard to dismiss, or shifts the attention from Ukraine to improving US-Russia economic ties.
Another potential challenge would be if Putin extends an invitation for Trump to meet with him in Russia, placing Zelenskiy and other allies with the difficult choice of being sidelined or rewarding the Kremlin by traveling there.
The last summit between the two leaders — a 2018 meeting in Helsinki — has cast a shadow over Friday's gathering and highlighted what has been at times an imbalanced relationship. At that time the two leaders spent time alone without aides.
At the news conference wrapping up that summit, Trump publicly sided with Putin over his own intelligence officials, drawing bipartisan condemnation for saying he believed the Russian leader's assurances that Moscow had not meddled in the 2016 US election.
--With assistance from Derek Wallbank.
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