6 minutes
US President Donald Trump is heading to Alaska on Air Force One for expected talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. A Russian delegation has already arrived in Anchorage and will also take part in the talks. On the eve of the talks, several hundred people gathered in Anchorage to express support for Ukraine, the BBC's Russian-language server reported. Ukraine, which has been resisting a full-scale Russian invasion for three and a half years, did not receive an invitation to the meeting.
"Vladimir Putin is a smart person, he's been doing this for a long time, and so have I. It's going to be very difficult. We get along, we respect each other, and I'm confident that something will come of it," the US president told reporters during a flight to Alaska.
He also said that the war and killing in Ukraine must end. Asked what he thought about Russia's attack on Ukraine again on Thursday night, the White House chief of staff said that Putin was preparing the ground for negotiations."In his mission, it helps him get a better deal, when he can continue killing, maybe it's his imagination, but he thinks it helps him and gives him strength in negotiations," he noted, adding that he would talk to the Russian leader about it.
According to the Flightradar24 system, a Russian government plane has landed in Alaska. It is unclearwhether Russian leader Vladimir Putin was on board. The plane took off from Magadan, where Putin was on Friday, Reuters writes.
Source: Reuters/Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov
A Kremlin spokesman said, according to news agencies, that Trump will personally welcome Putin at his plane, which is scheduled to land in Alaska at 11:00 a.m. local time (9:00 p.m. CEST). The Kremlin said that Putin would arrive in Alaska on time, noted ČT foreign correspondent Bohumil Vostal."Putin is known for his habit of making statesmen and foreign representatives wait before meeting with them. In this regard, we see that he will apparently make an exception and not keep Trump waiting," he added.
The two leaders will then hold talks, which are scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m. CEST). The Kremlin expects their conversation to last six to seven hours and lead to results, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to news agencies.
The Russian delegation is already in place
According to The Independent, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Alexander Darchiev arrived in Alaska. When Lavrov arrived at the hotel, he was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the words USSR, meaning the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, under a black quilted vest.
A Russian Ilyushin Il-96, designated in Russia for the transport of high-ranking officials, landed at Anchorage International Airport on Thursday. According to a website for aviation enthusiasts, it flew from Moscow via an Arctic route and needed special permission to fly over American territory, as Russian-registered aircraft are not allowed to enter American airspace due to anti-Russian restrictions. Putin himself is not expected to land at the international airport, but directly at the summit venue at Elmendorf-Richardson military base.
The Kremlin chief made a stop in Magadan in the Russian Far East, 3,200 kilometers from Anchorage, on his way to Alaska. His spokesman Peskov earlier told reporters that he would visit one of the local businesses or a sports complex there.
According to the White House schedule, Trump will be in Alaska for about seven hours. The US president's scheduled departure from Anchorage back to Washington is scheduled for Saturday at 03:45 CEST.
The summit is taking place in Alaska at the Elmendorf-Richardson base near the city of Anchorage.
Trump will personally welcome Putin, who is scheduled to land at 9:00 PM CEST.
The talks will begin at 9:30 p.m. CEST with a private meeting between the two heads of state, in the presence of interpreters.
The main point of the meeting will be the full-fledged Russian invasion of Ukraine. The meeting is to be followed by a press conference by both presidents. The length of the meeting has not been set, it will depend on Trump and Putin.
The leaders are also expected to discuss US-Russian economic cooperation and global security issues.
The one-on-one meeting is to be followed by delegation talks. The American team will include Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff. The Russian side will include Vladimir Putin's adviser Yuri Ushakov, as well as Foreign, Defense and Finance Ministers Sergei Lavrov, Andrei Belousov and Anton Siluanov, and Putin's negotiator Kirill Dmitriev.
Demonstration for Ukraine
Residents of Anchorage took to the streets in support of Ukraine on Thursday. They are calling for an immediate ceasefire. Some of them are calling Putin an international criminal and expressing their disapproval of his presence on US soil. A Czech Television crew was also filming on site. “International criminals are not accepted in Alaska,” protester Valerie said.
Protester Douglas Loshbaugh recalled that France and Britain ceded part of Czechoslovakia to the Germans to prevent World War II."But it didn't work. I'd like it not to happen twice," he said.
GALLERY
Demonstrations in Alaska support Ukraine
"Ceding Ukraine to Putin is like ceding Czechoslovakia to Hitler," read the sign, referring to the Munich Conference of September 1938, at which representatives of Western European powers and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler agreed, without the participation of Czechoslovak representatives, that the border parts of Czechoslovakia inhabited mainly by Germans would be acquired by Germany.
Mixed signals and hopes
The Kremlin confirmed that the statesmen will mainly discuss the conflict in Ukraine. In preparation for the summit, Vladimir Putin met with other senior Russian officials. The warring countries have again exchanged prisoners. Otherwise, Moscow is not letting up in its bombing of Ukraine or pressure on the Donbas fronts. There is no indication that the Russian president would give up claims to the occupied territories. Their extradition remains completely unacceptable to Kiev.
“The time has come to end the war and Russia must take appropriate action. We are counting on America,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on the Telegram social network. “The stakes are really high,” he stressed in a post he posted after talks with the commanders of the armed forces.
"We hope that the main topic of the meeting will be a ceasefire. An immediate ceasefire. The US president has repeatedly stated this. He suggested to me that after the meeting in Alaska, we will contact each other again. And we will discuss all its possible results," Zelensky added.
Starmer demands a firm security guarantee
Wednesday's conversation with the US president eased Ukrainian concerns about Trump's statement on Monday that the deal would likely include a land swap. Zelensky nevertheless visited another key ally, Britain, on Thursday."Any discussion of the border must be accompanied by a firm and credible security guarantee that ensures that any eventual peace is durable and that Ukraine can defend its territorial integrity," British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said afterward.
Trump, according to European leaders, has shown a willingness to join these guarantees, although only very vaguely so far. According to French President Emmanuel Macron, however, he has clearly ruled out that NATO as a whole would take them on. The US president also stated that if his Russian counterpart does not agree to an end to the fighting, it will have very serious consequences for Russia.
"Tap meeting"
The meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska is more of a "taster", according to expert Martin Jiruška from Masaryk University in Brno."Trump is also suggesting this, which is quite unusual for him, since his rhetoric is usually quite strong. In this case, he is very cautious. He says he is going into this to hear what the situation is, to hear what Putin thinks about it," he noted. Jiruška would be surprised by any fundamental agreement.
According to him, the aim is to agree on another meeting at the meeting, which should also include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which is something that European leaders have also tried to convince Trump of.
Jiruška also believes that the US president's talks with European leaders helped the White House chief realize that this is the first step."And that his plans to resolve the conflict in Ukraine in a short time will probably not work out. We can probably expect some exchange of views," the academic added.
+ 8 more
Trump relies on personal contact and believes that all he needs to do is meet Putin face to face and everything will be resolved, says commentator Ondřej Šmigol. “This could be treacherous for Putin, especially if the rumors turn out to be true that he is preparing some kind of historical interpretation of why Ukraine is supposedly an artificial state,” the commentator said. “I don’t know if Trump will be willing to put up with these interpretations, he won’t be able to hold his attention for long,” he added.
"The results of the summit in Alaska are still a relatively big unknown, it is probably not expected that the negotiations would bring a decisive turning point that would stop the fighting or the conflict in Ukraine in a short period of time, even in the form of a ceasefire," believes security analyst Richard Stojar. On the other hand, according to him, the question is how the meeting will turn out and whether the negotiations will continue.
"With Trump, it cannot be ruled out that Russia will become even more isolated after this summit, if the American president is not satisfied with its results. It depends on what threats the American side will make to the Russian side and where the American side would be willing to go to put pressure on the Russian Federation, or possibly Ukraine," the analyst added.
Expectations in Ukraine are not high ahead of the summit, said Petr Kalina, a Ukrainian scholar from the Faculty of Arts at Masaryk University, on the ČT24 program Horizont."Nobody hopes to wake up to peace on Saturday morning, maybe even a ceasefire. Rather, there are concerns that the meeting of the two leaders could mean a restart of these two states, which would not be good for Ukraine."
There are also concerns that Trump will not be tough enough on Putin and that nothing useful will be negotiated for Ukraine at this time. Behind the current pressure from Russia on the front, the Ukrainian sees an effort to improve its negotiating position at the summit."It is still true that Russia's territorial gains against Ukraine are not dazzling," he added. He fears that the war is not yet nearing its end. According to him, the same opinion prevails among Ukrainian commentators.
