US President Donald Trump flew aboard Air Force One from Washington to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss a possible ceasefire agreement in Ukraine.
The White House previously said Trump is accompanied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, CIA chief John Ratcliffe, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and special envoy Steve Whitkoff, among others.
Trump wrote on the social media network TruthSocial ahead of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, “The stakes are high.”
On the Russian side, in addition to Putin, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, defence minister Andrei Belousov, finance minister Anton Siluanov and Russian presidential special envoy Kirill Dmitriev will visit Alaska.
Analysts at the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Moscow’s inclusion of Siluanov and Dmitriev in the delegation indicates that Russia is likely to try to shift the focus of the summit from the war in Ukraine to potential bilateral economic agreements.
The Trump-Putin summit in Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, will be the first meeting between a Russian leader and a sitting US president since 2021. The summit is expected to start at 11:00 local time (22:00 Kiev time) and is scheduled to take place at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base.
On the eve of the US President Donald Trump said that the purpose of the summit in Alaska on 15 August is to prepare this second possible meeting, which, as the US President admits, could also be held in Alaska “very soon”. We are talking about a meeting involving both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It, according to Trump, will be more important than his summit with Putin.
Read also: anxiety before the meeting in Alaska. What is Trump’s plan? Will Putin circle him?
Trump suggested that there is a 25 per cent chance that his meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska will not be successful.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the day before that it would be a mistake to try to look ahead and predict the outcome of the meeting. According to him, there are no plans to sign any documents based on the results of the US-Russian summit in Alaska.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not taking part in the meeting of the US and Russian presidents in Alaska. Earlier, Zelensky said that Ukraine was not going to “give its land to anyone” and that the AFU itself would not leave Donbass.
Kiev insists on firm security guarantees in case of any agreements with Russia.