The highly anticipated encounter between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is right around the corner as the two are set to meet in Alaska on Friday, with many hoping for progress and concrete solutions on the issue of the war in Ukraine.
Putin's last trip to the US took place all the way back in 2015, when he attended the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, during Barack Obama's reign.
Meanwhile, the last time Trump and Putin spoke face to face was in 2018, during Trump's first term as president. They had an official summit in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2018, and then an informal conversation in November 2018, at the G20 summit sidelines in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
At their meeting, Trump is expected to pressure his Russian counterpart to accept a ceasefire agreement with Kiev. Even though the original deadline for the Kremlin's answer was August 8, this has since been pushed back, as the two sides try to work things out. While the US head of state is known for his hardline approach, usually forcing the other side to make concessions, Putin, a former Committee for State Security (KGB) agent, is no pushover and is expected to put up a fight. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is unlikely to attend this summit, with the European Union stressing that without him, any deal reached would be void.
Alaska, the venue, was likely a symbolic and strategic choice. Moscow sold the land to Washington in 1867, with the territory getting the state status in 1959. Although the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023, the Russian head of state can freely fly to the US, as the latter is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and has no legal obligations toward the ICC.
