Trump-Putin relationship takes spotlight at summit
Trump has long boasted that he has gotten along well with Putin and spoken admiringly of him, even praising him as "pretty smart" for invading Ukraine. But in recent months, he's expressed frustrations with Putin and threatened more sanctions on his country.
At the same time, Trump has offered conflicting messages about his expectations for Friday's summit. He has called it "really a feel-out meeting" to gauge Putin's openness to a ceasefire but also warned of "very severe consequences" if Putin does not agree to end the war.
For Putin, the meeting is a chance to repair his relationship with Trump and unlace the West's isolation of his country following its invasion of Ukraine. He has been open about his desire to rebuild US-Russia relations now that Trump is back in the White House.
The White House has dismissed any suggestion that Trump's agreeing to sit down with Putin is a win for the Russian leader. But critics suggest the meeting gives Putin an opportunity to get in Trump's ear to the detriment of Ukraine, whose leader was excluded from the summit.
Here's a look back at the ups and downs of Trump and Putin's relationship:
* Russia questions during the 2016 campaign
Months before he was first elected president, Trump cast doubt on findings from US intelligence agencies that Russian government hackers had stolen emails from Democrats, including his opponent Hillary Clinton, and released them in an effort to hurt her campaign and boost Trump's.
In one 2016 appearance, he shockingly called on Russian hackers to find emails that Clinton had reportedly deleted.
"Russia, if you're listening," Trump said, "I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."
Questions about his connections to Russia dogged much of his first term, touching off investigations by the Justice Department and Congress and leading to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, who secured multiple convictions against Trump aides and allies but did not establish proof of a criminal conspiracy between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
These days, Trump describes the Russia investigation as an affinity he and Putin shared.
"Putin went through a hell of a lot with me," Trump said earlier in 2025 of what he called a "phoney witch hunt".
Putin in 2019 mocked the investigation's findings, saying, "A mountain gave birth to a mouse."
* 'He just said it's not Russia'
Trump met Putin six times during his first term, including a 2018 summit in Helsinki, when Trump stunned the world by appearing to side with an American adversary about whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election.
"I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today," Trump said. "He just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."
Facing intense blowback, Trump tried to walk back the comment a day later. But clouded that reversal by saying other countries could have also interfered.
Putin referred to Helsinki summit as "the beginning of the path" back from Western efforts to isolate Russia. He also made clear that he had wanted Trump to win in 2016.
* Trump calls Putin 'pretty smart' after invasion of Ukraine
The two leaders kept up their friendly relationship after Trump left the White House under protest in 2021.
After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, Trump described the Russian leader in positive terms.
"I mean, he's taking over a country for two dollars' worth of sanctions. I'd say that's pretty smart," Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago resort. He later suggested Putin was going into Ukraine to "be a peacekeeper".
Trump repeatedly said the invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he had been president - a claim Putin endorsed while lending his support to Trump's false claims of election fraud.
Through much of his campaign, Trump criticised US support for Ukraine and derided Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a "salesman" for persuading Washington to provide weapons and funding to his country.
* Revisiting the relationship
Once he became president, Trump stopped claiming he would solve the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. In March, he said he was "being a little bit sarcastic" when he said that.
In Trump's second term, Putin has pushed for a summit while trying to pivot from the Ukrainian conflict by emphasising the prospect of launching joint US-Russian economic projects, among other issues.
"We'd better meet and have a calm conversation on all issues of interest to both the United States and Russia based on today's realities," Putin said in January.
In February, things looked favourable for Putin when Trump had a blow-up with Zelenskiy at the White House, berating him as "disrespectful".
But in April, as Russian strikes escalated, Trump posted a public plea on social media: "Vladimir, STOP!"
He began voicing more frustration with the Russian leader, saying he was "Just tapping me along".
Earlier in August, Trump ordered the repositioning of two US nuclear submarines "based on the highly provocative statements" of the country's former president, Dmitry Medvedev.
Trump's vocal protests about Putin have tempered since he announced their meeting, but so have his predictions for what he might accomplish.
On Monday, Trump described their summit not as the occasion in which he would finally get the conflict "settled" but instead as "really a feel-out meeting, a little bit".
"I think it'll be good," Trump said. "But it might be bad."
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