Trump left for Alaska at around 2 p.m., the talks are scheduled to begin at 9 p.m., and on Saturday morning at 4 a.m. Trump is expected to return to Washington (all times are our time). A year ago, when asked by a reporter whether he would provide security guarantees to Ukraine (so that after the ceasefire, Russia would not dare to attack it again), he replied: Maybe. He added that he would not negotiate on behalf of Ukraine, but would only encourage Putin to negotiate with Ukraine to stop the fighting. He threatened Russia with severe economic sanctions if it refused to talk to Ukraine about ending the war.
Trump impressed with Lukashenko
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that Putin would be received by Trump at the Anchorage airport, reportedly at 9 p.m. local time. On the way to Alaska, Trump spoke by phone with Belarusian tyrant Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin ally. Trump said he had a very pleasant conversation. He thanked him for the release of 16 political prisoners on July 2 and discussed the release of 1,300 more political prisoners. Trump added:"I look forward to meeting with Lukashenko in the future."
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the meeting between Trump and Putin, including a working lunch and a press conference, could last"at least six or seven hours." Peskov also said that they would first meet face-to-face (with translators) before the two delegations hold talks and then a press conference.
Who are the members of the two delegations?
Trump is accompanied to Alaska by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, US Special Envoy for Russia Steve Witkoff, White House Spokesperson Karolina Leavitt, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and her aide Dan Scavino. The fact that the US delegation does not include Special Envoy for Ukraine General Keith Kellogg, who is almost the only one in the Trump administration who is well aware of Putin's aggressiveness and his conquest tendencies, which is why he is not in favor of the Russian president, is telling.
In addition to Putin, the Russian delegation includes Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Policy Advisor Yuri Ushakov, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, and Director of the Russian Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev.
Lavrov with the inscription USSR?
Like Trump, Putin flew into Russian America, as Alaska was called before 1867, only at the last minute, on Friday, while the rest of the Russian delegation arrived on Thursday evening local time. Upon arrival at a hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, Foreign Minister Lavrov stated: We have arguments and our position is very clear, we will explain it. In response to a journalist who asked him what the chances of the summit's success were, he said: We never make predictions. He added that a lot had already been achieved in the talks that Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Steve Witkoff, had with Putin in the Kremlin on Wednesday, August 6. This was a real estate billionaire who completely embraced Putin's views on Ukraine, and whose main concern was clearly future business in Russia.
Lavrov was wearing a T-shirt with the words CCCP in Cyrillic, meaning USSR, which is the Russian abbreviation for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This is a dangerous provocation by the head of Russian diplomacy, because the war in Ukraine is said to be part of Putin's plan to restore the Soviet Union, which would also mean the Russian subjugation of Moldova, the Baltic and Central Asian countries, and perhaps also a tendency to increase Russian influence in former Warsaw Pact members.
The war continues.
Families of imprisoned, missing and fallen Ukrainian soldiers gathered outside the US embassy in Kiev on Friday to remember the toll the current war is taking. They demanded that Trump demand a prisoner swap from Putin instead of a territory swap, which he says was agreed upon in Alaska.
On the night from Thursday to Friday, the Russian military sent 97 drones to civilian facilities. Ukrainians claim that they disabled 63 of them in the air. From Thursday morning to Friday morning, there were 149 clashes on the front.
Ukrainian drones have again attacked a Russian refinery. This time, they are said to have caused a fire at a refinery in the Samara region, located south of the Urals and 800 kilometers east of Ukraine. It is reportedly the most important refinery of the large Russian oil company Rosneft, which also supplies fuel to the Russian army and military aircraft.
Russian successes, but no breakthrough
The Russian army failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough this week, but by operating in small groups of five to ten Russian soldiers, it managed to capture more than a hundred square kilometers of territory in the Donetsk region. This is a lot considering that in the past two years it has only captured about 80 square kilometers per month on average. In addition, the capture of a key road link has now weakened Ukrainian defenses north of the strategically important town of Pokrovsk, for which fighting has been ongoing since last summer. The Ukrainian army has managed to prevent a Russian breakthrough of the front by sending large reinforcements to this part of the front north of Pokrovsk in recent days. The Russian army continues to suffer heavy losses while trying to gain better political positions for Russian leaders at a meeting in Alaska, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Trump wants to attend his next meeting with Putin, said on Friday.
Zelensky on the Alaska summit
Zelensky expressed hope on social media that this first meeting between Trump and Putin since 2019 would pave the way for a fair peace and serious trilateral talks between the leaders of Ukraine, the United States and Russia. He added: We are counting on the United States. The worst-case scenario for Kiev would be if Trump agreed to Putin's demand that Russia permanently annex the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye, Kherson and the Crimean peninsula, which - including the territory currently still in the hands of the Ukrainian army - would amount to more than a fifth of Ukraine.
