US President Donald Trump will meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on 15 August in Alaska to talk about ending the war in Ukraine. Trump himself announced this on Truth Social. The Kremlin has confirmed the meeting.
Trump has According to the AP news agency Said he thinks the top will be a success, because both Putin and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zensky wants peace. Initially, Trump wanted Zensky to be present at the top consultation. Why Zensky will not be there is unclear. During the war in Ukraine, Putin has always stopped direct encounters with Zensky.
Earlier on Friday, the American president said that a peace agreement may mean that Ukraine and Russia will exchange controlled areas. The meeting follows the visit of the American diplomat Steve Witkoff to Russia earlier this week. He would have spoken to Putin for about three hours in the Kremlin, a meeting described by the Russians as “constructive”.
‘Solution for the crisis in Ukraine’
During the meeting, Trump and Putin will “concentrate on discussing options for a long -term peaceful solution for the crisis in Ukraine,” says Yuri Ushakov, Putin adviser, According to Reuters news agency.
According to The Wall Street Journal has indicated Putin to the United States willing to stop the war in exchange for international recognition of the Donbas as Russian territory. The American newspaper writes this on the basis of information from European and Ukrainian sources. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zensky has in a response said that no territorial concession will do. Moreover, he sees every solution in which Ukraine is not involved as a “solution against peace.”
The last time Putin and Trump met was in 2019. Putin then had a meeting with an American president: in 2021 he spoke with Joe Biden in Geneva, Switzerland. Putin’s last visit to the US dates from longer ago: in 2015 he was last in that country.