Trump-Putin Alaska Meet Live Updates: US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin kicked off their Alaska summit with a warm handshake on Friday, greeting each other like old friends before heading into hours of discussions that could reshape the war in Ukraine and relations between Moscow and Washington.
Both Trump and Putin are seeking wins from the meeting, which marks the first time Putin will set foot on foreign soil since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Trump, who casts the war as a risky “bloodbath”, is pressing for a ceasefire in the war that would cement his image as a global peacemaker. For Putin, the summit is already a big win as it allows him to say that Western efforts to isolate Russia over the years have failed.
Trump said that while there are 25 per cent chances of the talks failing, their success could allow him to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for a second three-way meeting. Zelensky’s exclusion from the summit is a setback for the West’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” and raises the possibility that Trump could agree to a deal that is unfavourable to Ukraine.
While enroute to Alaska’s Anchorage, Trump fired barbs mid-air from the Air Force One, warning of more severe sanctions if the talks aren’t fruitful. “I noticed he’s bringing a lot of business people from Russia, and that’s good. I like that because they want to do business, but they’re not doing business until we get to war settled,” he said.