Trump and Putin meet in Alaska for critical summit to end Russia’s war with Ukraine

President Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have arrived in Anchorage, Alaska, for their first face-to-face meeting in several years to discuss what it will take to end the war in Ukraine. They smiled and shook hands as they met on the tarmac at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson before the start of their meeting.

The summit, if successful, could pave the way for further talks between Putin, Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to end more than three years of fighting that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The US president has warned Putin of “very severe consequences” if he doesn’t agree to a cease-fire, including potentially harsh new sanctions that would ramp up economic pressure on Russia.

The US president expressed confidence in reaching a deal at the Alaska summit. But he said that he “would walk” away if the negotiations with Putin did not go well. Zelensky on Friday urged Russia to end the war. “We are counting on America,” he said on social media ahead of the summit.

Trump’s expected one-on-one meeting with Putin will now include two advisers for each leader, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will join Trump on the US side. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin will be accompanied by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov.

Following that, the two presidents are expected to participate in an expanded meeting with their respective delegations. Trump and Putin are also planning to hold a press conference, according to White House officials.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and other European leaders will be closely monitoring the outcome. They spoke with Trump earlier this week to hash out red lines for the discussions. Trump told European officials that territorial concessions would need to be addressed between Russia and Ukraine directly.

The impasse to ending this war seems to be that Russia wants what Ukraine considers to be an unacceptable amount of Ukrainian land in exchange for ending the war. How this impasse will be addressed remains to be seen.