U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Alaska next Friday Discuss the future of the Ukrainian war.
Trump announced an August 15 meeting on social media, later confirmed by a Kremlin spokesman that the location was “quite logical” given Alaska’s relative proximity to Russia.
The spokesman added that Trump has been invited to Russia for the second summit.
Ukraine did not respond immediately.
The announcement of the meeting comes hours before the war ended after Trump said Ukraine might have to ced, which was a full-scale Russian invasion of its neighbors in February 2022.
“You are looking for territory that has been fighting for three and a half years, and many Russians have died. Many Ukrainians have died,” Trump said at the White House on Friday.
“It’s very complicated. We’re going to come back a little, we’re going to switch some. We’re going to change some territory to improve both.”
The U.S. president has not provided more details on the appearance of the proposal.
However, BBC’s US Partner CBS Newsciting sources familiar with the discussion, reported that the White House is trying to support European leaders in accepting a deal that includes Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and retaining Crimea.
CBS reported that this would abandon the Coulson and Zaporizhzhia areas, which it occupied partly as part of the proposed agreement.
Earlier Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Putin proposed a similar arrangement with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff at a recent meeting in Moscow.
It is unclear whether Ukraine and European allies agree to the agreement, as Ukrainian President Vorodimir Zelensky and Putin remain far apart under peaceful conditions.
Zelensky completely rejects any prerequisites for territorial offers.
A senior White House official told CBS that plans for the meeting next Friday remain smooth and that Zelensky still has the potential to be involved in some capacity.
Moscow failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough in its full invasion, but it accounts for about 20% of Ukrainian territory. Meanwhile, Ukrainian offensive did not delay the Russian army.
Direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul failed to bring the war closer to an end, and Moscow’s military and political peace premises were seen by Kief and his allies as a factual surrender to Ukraine.
Russia’s demands include Ukraine becoming a neutral country, greatly reducing its military and abandoning NATO’s aspirations, and lifting Western sanctions on Russia.
Moscow also hopes that Kief will withdraw its military from four areas occupied by Russia in the southeastern Ukraine and allow soldiers to replace its soldiers.
However, Trump insisted on Friday that the United States had “shooted” a trilateral peace agreement between the two countries.
He told reporters: “I believe President Putin wants to see peace, he wants to see peace, and Zelensky wants to see peace.”
“President Zelensky has to take control of everything he needs because he will have to prepare to sign something, and I think he is working on doing that,” Trump said.
last month, Trump acknowledges BBC Putin initially caused optimism to disappoint him after four previous visits to Witkoff.
In recent weeks, he has made good efforts on the Kremlin’s position, imposing Friday’s deadline, with Russia agreeing to a ceasefire in Ukraine or facing more comprehensive sanctions.
But as the deadline approaches, Trump and Putin’s plan to meet in person to discuss a potential peace deal quickly masked the economic threat.
No further sanctions against the White House against Russia were announced Friday.
Trump and Putin’s first direct exchange between the leaders of the two countries since the Russian full-scale invasion in February.
The last time the U.S. president met Putin was in 2021 when Joe Biden met with the Russian president at a summit in Geneva, Switzerland.
