Trump to meet Putin in Alaska as Kyiv rejects land giveaway
'The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska,' Trump wrote on Friday in a social media post. 'Further details to follow.'
The face-to-face summit with Putin represents a gamble for the US president, who on the campaign trail pledged to bring a quick end to the war only to see his efforts repeatedly stymied.
Inviting Putin onto US soil for the first time in nearly a decade will only heighten the stakes for Trump, who's seeking to reach an agreement that he said would see the countries engage in 'some swapping of territories.'
The apparent exclusion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy from the talks was likely to fan fears that the White House and Kremlin would negotiate terms predicated on concessions Ukraine was unwilling to make. Trump said Friday he believed 'we're getting very close' to a peace deal.
Zelenskiy on Saturday said Ukraine won't cede territory to Putin to bring an end to Russia's 3 ½ year invasion, and said any deal reached without Kyiv's involvement was a 'dead solution.' Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha echoed those comments, saying on X that Russia 'must not be rewarded for starting this war' and that 'we need a lasting peace that won't be destroyed by Moscow's next move.'
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Trump didn't reveal additional sanctions on Russia or tariffs on its energy purchasers as he announced the summit, despite having declared a Friday deadline for the Kremlin to agree to a ceasefire.
The summit announcement came after a week of frenetic diplomacy between the US, its European partners and Russia. People familiar with the discussions between Washington and Moscow say negotiators have circled around a deal that would lock in Russia's occupation of territory seized during its military invasion.
That includes a demand by Putin that Ukraine cede its entire eastern Donbas area to Russia as well as Crimea, which his forces illegally annexed in 2014. That would require Zelenskiy to order a withdrawal of troops from parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions still held by Kyiv, handing Russia a victory that its army couldn't achieve militarily since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Trump on Friday acknowledged that he saw a land swap as a likely part of any agreement.
'It's very complicated,' Trump said. 'But we're going to get some back. We're going to get some switched. There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both and but we'll be talking about that either later or tomorrow or whatever.'
Such an outcome would represent a major win for Putin, who has long sought direct negotiations with the US on terms for ending the war that he started, sidelining Ukraine and its European allies.
Zelenskiy risks being presented with a take-it-or-leave-it deal to accept the loss of Ukrainian territory, while Europe fears it would be left to monitor a ceasefire as Putin rebuilds his forces. Kyiv's allies also have a multitude of doubts about how any agreement might be enforced and what security guarantees Ukraine will receive.
The Ukrainian leader has previously demanded Russia withdraw its troops and pay reparations for the devastation inflicted on the country since the February 2022 invasion. But Trump on Friday cast Zelenskiy as willing to work toward concluding a deal.
'President Zelenskiy has to get all of – his everything he needs, because he's going to have to get ready to sign something and I think he is working hard to get that done,' Trump said.
The US had previously offered to recognise Crimea as Russian as part of any deal, and to effectively cede control of parts of other Ukrainian regions that Russia occupies. As part of those earlier proposals, control over areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson would be returned to Ukraine.
Under the terms of the deal that officials are discussing, Russia would halt its offensive in those regions along the current battle lines, the people said.
After the announcement of the Alaska summit, the Kremlin invited Trump to visit Russia.
'It is natural to aim for the next meeting of the presidents to be held on Russian territory,' said Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov according to a statement published by the Kremlin on Telegram. 'An invitation has already been extended to the president of the United States.'
Trump has long faced accusations from critics that his cozy relationship with Putin has blinded him to the Russian leader's true intentions. He repeatedly criticised US aid to Ukraine under former President Joe Biden. A 2018 meeting in Helsinki, in which Trump said he believed Putin over US intelligence officials who had concluded Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, drew bipartisan condemnation in Washington.
Trump has toughened his tone toward Putin in recent weeks, expressing frustration that the Russian leader seemed unwilling to cease hostilities.
Brokering a lasting peace deal would amount to a major political victory for Trump, who has increasingly sought to leverage economic pressure to solve foreign policy crises. In recent days, the US president has announced an additional 25% tariff on India over its purchase of crude oil from Russia.
Momentum toward a meeting between Trump and Putin quickened this week after the Russian president met with US special envoy Steve Witkoff for nearly three hours of talks in the Kremlin earlier this week. US, European and Ukrainian officials have spent recent days discussing their response to those talks, and discussions are expected to continue this weekend in the UK, Axios reported. BLOOMBERG
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