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President Donald Trump boards Air Force One as he departs for Alaska to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate for an end to the war in Ukraine, from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, August 15, 2025.
US President Donald Trump has departed Washington to Anchorage, Alaska ahead of his highly anticipated peace summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The face-to-face talks are expected to start around 9pm South Africa time, in what Trump has described as a chess game, expressing hopes it would lead to another meeting that would include Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the near future.
Trump will be meeting with a man who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the war crime of unlawfully deporting thousands of children from Ukraine.
Trump will welcome the Russian President who will be on US soil for the first time in almost 10 years and just over four years since Putin met former President Joe Biden in Geneva in June 2021 ahead of Russia’s ground invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump posted the words “high stakes” on Truth Social with talks expected to prioritize efforts to end the war that could lead to broad bilateral economic discussions between Washington and Moscow.
Trump earlier suggested territorial swaps could be part of any future deal, a notion that has largely been rejected by Ukraine and European Allies who will be absent from the Alaska meeting.
