Latest news with #bilateral summit
BBC News
11-08-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Zelensky could still attend Trump-Putin meeting, but rest of Europe is shut out
It's the bilateral summit every European leader wants to be for good reason. On Friday, Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss ending the war in concessions will likely be discussed, and Europe (not least Ukraine) doesn't want its borders to be redrawn through as things stand, there are no invites for the country being invaded, nor the continent it sits in."Brace ourselves for some pretty outrageous Russian demands," warns Lord Simon McDonald, a former head of the UK Foreign Office."It will be theatrical," he adds. "Putin is going to ask for things that nobody else would concede - with the possible exception of Donald Trump." Trump says he will try to get back territory for Ukraine in talks with Putin President Zelensky has said he won't agree to the giving up of any land, or even freezing the conflict along the current front argument is that it won't slow a Russian war machine that has waged a full-scale war for more than three and a half years. Concessions, he claims, would only speed it up."It's clear Putin wants a photo with the most influential people on Earth, which is President Trump, and he wants sanctions to be postponed, which he'll probably get," the EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, tells me."The question is, what is success for the US in the meeting?" she asks. "If President Zelensky is there, it would be a clear success."But if Ukraine's leader isn't at the Alaskan table, how might the Kremlin's proposals be challenged?"He could go," said the US president on that possibility. But Kyiv and Europe want it to go from a "maybe" to a "yes".Adding to their anxiety is the one-on-one format being a Kremlin idea the White House agreed to. A European scramble Brussels' European Quarter isn't its usual flurry of political activity during August, but these US-Russia talks have changed Monday, Kallas hosted a virtual meeting of foreign ministers where they called for an unconditional ceasefire before any deal. New sanctions for Moscow were announced as well.I asked Kallas what she thought Donald Trump meant by suggesting some land could be swapped."We have to ask President Trump," she says. "But it is clear an aggressor can't be awarded for aggression. Otherwise, we will just see more aggression around the world because it pays off."Europe is trying to do two things: rally around Ukraine, as well as muscle in on this American-led peace or not Zelensky does make the trip, the door for Europe has firmly remained shut since Trump retook office at the start of the the time his envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said the bloc wouldn't be involved in any peace talks. It's a position the Europeans have been unable to change through relationship with the US has still improved, not least with significant increases in their defence spending. But Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, believes they need a more central role."This is a matter of existential European security interest," he explains."We appreciate Trump's efforts but we'll be taking our own decision in Europe too."A simple ceasefire would not resolve the problem."German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has secured a remote sit down between European leaders, as well as Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump, this hope to be consulted on America's plan to end Russia's invasion, but ex-UK Foreign Office head Lord McDonald would be surprised to see a last-minute European invite for Friday."The end will be as protracted as the war has been long," he warned."The meeting is a milestone, but it doesn't actually mean it will lead anywhere."
Russia Today
10-08-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Why Trump wants Putin in Alaska – and not anywhere else
The choice of Alaska as the venue for the August 15, 2025, bilateral summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin carries a rare blend of symbolism. It reaches deep into the past, reflects the current geopolitical balance, and hints at the contours of future US–Russia relations. From the standpoint of historical memory, there is hardly another place in the United States that so clearly embodies the spirit of neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation lost during the Cold War. From 1737 until 1867, this vast, sparsely populated land was known as Russian America – a semi-exclave of the Russian Empire, separated from its Eurasian heartland yet sharing a border with another state. Tsar Alexander II's decision to sell Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million was one of the most debated diplomatic transactions of the 19th century. In St. Petersburg, it was clear: if left unattended, Alaska would likely fall into the hands of Russia's main rival at the time – the British Empire. Handing it over to Washington was not an act of weakness, but a calculated investment in future relations with a nation whose Pacific ambitions did not yet collide with Russia's. In the 20th century, this symbolic connection gained new meaning. During World War II, the city of Fairbanks – with a population of just thirty thousand – became a major hub in the Lend-Lease program, a massive US military aid effort that supplied the Soviet Union with aircraft, equipment, and materials. Alaska's airfields served as a key route for delivering American planes to the Eastern Front. Even today, Alaska remains the 'most Russian' of US states: home to Old Believers – descendants of 19th-century settlers seeking religious freedom – with functioning Orthodox churches and place names like Nikolaevsk, Voznesensk, and Upper and Lower Russian Lakes, linked by the Russian River. But the choice of Alaska is more than a nod to history; it is also a political calculation. Trump clearly has no intention of sharing the spotlight with intermediaries such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Türkiye, or Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates and one of the most influential figures in Middle Eastern politics. Both men have played high-profile roles as international brokers, but their involvement would inevitably shift the tone and priorities of the summit. Trump has chosen the most geographically remote state in the union – thousands of miles from any Euro-Atlantic capital – to underline his distance both from his Democratic opponents at home and from NATO allies who, acting in Kiev's interests, will seek to undermine any potential breakthroughs. There is also a practical side: Alaska's low population density makes it easier for security services to minimize the risk of terrorist attacks or staged provocations, while sidestepping the legal complications posed by the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant. In 2002, the United States withdrew its signature from the Rome Statute and it does not recognize the ICC's jurisdiction on its soil. There is another crucial dimension: Alaska is America's only truly Arctic region. In a world where the Trump administration has been exerting pressure on Canada and Greenland to bring them under firmer US influence, the high north is becoming a strategic theater. Russia and the United States have overlapping interests here – from developing the Northern Sea Route, which partly runs through the Bering Strait, to tapping offshore oil and gas reserves. The Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater formation in the Arctic Ocean claimed by Russia as a natural extension of its continental shelf, is a case in point. Joint Arctic projects could turn the region into one of the most prosperous in the world, but under a different scenario it could just as easily become a stage for nuclear weapons tests and air defense drills. Ukraine will loom large over the summit agenda. Western media outlets have already floated the possibility of territorial swaps – for example, the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Donetsk People's Republic in exchange for Russian concessions in the Sumy, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Nikolaev regions. Even Western analysts have called such a deal a diplomatic victory for Moscow, noting that the unoccupied territory Russia would gain would be four times the size of the areas it might cede. Alaska is a fitting place for such discussions: its own history is a vivid reminder that territorial ownership is not an immutable historical-geographic constant, but a political and diplomatic variable shaped by the agreements of great powers in specific historical moments. The summit in Alaska is more than just a meeting between two leaders. It is a return to the logic of direct dialogue without intermediaries, a reminder of historic ties, and a test of whether Moscow and Washington are willing to work together where their interests not only intersect, but could align. Alaska's story began as Russian, continued as American – and now has the chance to become a shared chapter, if both sides choose to see it as an opportunity rather than a threat.
