Alaskans welcomed Putin with Ukrainian flags. Protesters began gathering early in the morning before Putin arrived in Anchorage, chanting pro-Kiev slogans and demanding that Russia return 20,000 Ukrainian children abducted from the war zone.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet today at the Elmendorf-Richardson Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska. The meeting is expected to begin at 11:30 a.m. local time (10:30 p.m. Eastern Time).
The two leaders will initially hold private talks, and their delegations will meet for negotiations shortly after, before retiring for a working breakfast. The results of the summit will be announced at a joint press conference after the meeting.
The Russian delegation will consist of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, and adviser on economic cooperation with foreign countries Kirill Dmitriev.
Yesterday, Ushakov said that the main topic of conversation between the two presidents would be resolving the Ukrainian crisis, adding that"broader tasks related to ensuring peace and security, as well as current and most pressing international and regional issues, will be discussed."
Trump described the meeting as an attempt to move closer to a cessation of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine. In early August, after the meeting had already been announced, he spoke of a territorial swap between the two countries, saying they were close to concluding a peace agreement. On August 13, the Republican announced that he was planning a second round of live consultations with his Russian counterpart, this time with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky participating, dariknews reports.
"The United States is making sufficiently energetic and sincere efforts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis," Putin said yesterday. He did not rule out the possibility of new agreements between Russia and the United States in the field of arms control in the future that would strengthen peace.
On August 12, 26 European Union member states signed a joint statement welcoming the US president's efforts to bring peace to Ukraine. The document, which was not supported by Hungary, said that international borders should not be changed by force and that any just and lasting peace must respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Elmendorf-Richardson Air Force Base is the largest military installation in Alaska and is home to more than 32,000 people - about 10% of Anchorage's population. The area is also significant to Russia - 158 years ago the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire.
Today's meeting between Putin and Trump may go down in history as the moment that predetermined the end of the war in Ukraine.
In 1945, at Yalta, US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin outlined the spheres of influence of the great powers after the end of World War II. At the heart of the conference were issues of territorial integrity, sovereignty and future peace arrangements – issues that are once again at the forefront today.
