After six years, US President Trump and Russian President Putin are meeting again for the first time to discuss the war in Ukraine at a military base in Alaska. How will the day unfold? And what can we expect?

Where do Trump and Putin meet?

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are meeting for their first meeting in six years in the northernmost state of the USA, Alaska. This alone is symbolically significant – Alaska was once part of the Russian Empire, but was sold to the USA by Tsar Alexander II in 1867, partly to replenish the state coffers depleted by wars.

The 49th state thus represents a kind of nexus for the history of both countries. In Alaska, the meeting will take place at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage. This promises the necessary security, the US government explains, but should also spare both presidents the sight of protesters carrying unfriendly messages.

Another advantage: In the US, Putin doesn't have to worry about being arrested due to the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant against him—the US doesn't recognize the court. Putin's plane also doesn't have to fly over any other countries on its way to Alaska.

When do the presidents talk to each other?

Trump departed Washington, D.C., around 8:00 a.m. (local time, 2:00 p.m. CEST) and will land in Alaska this morning (local time). The first meeting is expected around noon (Alaska time, around 9:30 p.m. CEST).

The duration of the talks will certainly also depend on how much detail Trump and Putin go into and how close they come to an agreement on Ukraine.

According to Trump, it hasn't yet been decided whether Trump and Putin will hold a joint press conference afterward. He told Fox News that he himself will definitely speak to journalists afterward. The Russian side stated that there will be a joint press conference between Trump and Putin at the end of the summit.

Will there already be an agreement on Ukraine?

That seemed rather unlikely in the days leading up to the summit. Trump himself had dampened expectations at the beginning of the week, saying that the first step in Alaska would be to find out, in a kind of exploratory meeting, whether Putin was willing to reach an agreement. It could go well or badly, Trump said. At the end, he might say to Putin:"Good luck, keep fighting. Or I could say: We can make a deal."

Trump and Putin want to meet face-to-face, without a large staff of advisors. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and some Western heads of state are likely to view this with mixed feelings, even though Trump expressed disappointment with Putin and the Russian attacks on Ukraine in July. This had no consequences – Trump let an ultimatum set for Russia in early August expire and instead announced the meeting with Putin.

This is one of the reasons why the Europeans tried to make their concerns and expectations clear to Trump during the conference call organized by Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday. They subsequently considered the conversation a success. Yet one concern remains: Trump is considered easily influenced, especially through flattery and certain attentions. This has not gone unnoticed in the Kremlin.

Putin, in turn, is likely to want to find out how consistently Trump supports the demands of Ukraine and its Western allies and how far Trump is willing to engage with the Kremlin's hitherto uncompromising line - and how important it is to him to leave the war to the Europeans as quickly as possible.

The military situation is favorable for Putin, and he feels no pressure to quickly reach an agreement with Trump. It's quite possible that he will make Trump a very limited offer, such as a pause in drone strikes, to allow him to exit the meeting with face. It might also give him the opportunity to drive a wedge between the US and Ukraine, as well as the Europeans.

Former French President François Hollande, who negotiated with Putin for 17 hours in 2015 over a ceasefire in Donbas (the so-called Minsk 2 agreement), told the Financial Times that Putin was likely to play for time in Alaska."Putin will open the meeting by recounting the whole story. This could last an hour, even longer if he is not interrupted. The Russian negotiating method is to make it last a long time without much happening."

Lying is also one of Putin's tricks, Hollande recalls. In the end, however, Putin will offer Trump something—"mediation, another meeting, a working group—so that the other side can say: 'Look, Putin has moved a bit.'"

After the talks, Trump has announced that he will immediately inform Zelensky and European heads of state and government of any results. This doesn't necessarily preclude an agreement in Alaska, but it does make it clear that Trump has realized that the Ukrainians and their European allies are very sensitive about whether a far-reaching decision on Ukraine will be made over their heads.

Will Zelenskyy meet with Trump and Putin?

That's not planned. Zelenskyy would not only be willing to do so, but has long been pushing for a conversation with Putin. Only in May did he travel to Ankara, after there were hints that Putin might travel to Turkey to discuss the war in Ukraine. Instead, however, the Russian president sent a low-level delegation. Zelenskyy subsequently canceled his participation in the talks.

Trump was originally considering inviting Zelensky, according to US media reports. However, this met with resistance from Putin.

Putin has always rejected such a meeting, saying the time has not yet come. Whether he ever sees it happening at all is unclear – the Russian leadership repeatedly portrays Zelensky as an illegitimate president whose term in office expired during the war. Yet the Ukrainian constitution stipulates that elections are not held during wartime; a fair, equal, and secret election would certainly be impossible to organize as long as fighting continues in the east and south of the country.

Putin's view of Zelensky is likely to be determined primarily by the fact that he denies the Ukrainians the status of a separate nation and considers them part of Russia – in keeping with his great power mentality, Putin sees only the leader of the other major power concerned as his contact on this issue, namely US President Trump.

He has now promised that Zelensky will attend further consultations. On Monday, he said:"The next meeting will be with Zelensky and Putin, or with Zelensky, Putin, and me."

What happens next?

That depends on whether Trump and Putin reach an agreement or whether they want to hold further talks. Another meeting between Trump and Putin is scheduled to take place in Russia, and Trump has been invited to Russia for this purpose, Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov announced last week.

Should Trump accept any offer from Putin, he will certainly expect support from the Ukrainians and the Europeans – experience has shown that Trump reacts allergically to criticism of his decisions. Trump could then again question the continuation of military support for Ukraine – that would be a setback for Ukraine that would be almost impossible to bear.

If there is no agreement on Ukraine, much will depend on how Trump assesses Putin's willingness to reach an agreement in the foreseeable future. Before the summit, he announced that two minutes would be enough for him. After the Merz call, he threatened Putin with"very serious consequences" if the Russian leader was not willing to end the war against Ukraine.

Trump has already done this once, however, when he gave Putin a ten-day ultimatum to agree to a ceasefire at the end of July. He then silently abandoned this deadline when his special adviser, Witkoff, conveyed Putin's proposal for an early meeting.