US President Donald Trump will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin next Friday, August 15, in Alaska for talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
Announcing the meeting on Truth Social, Trump called it “highly anticipated” and promised further details soon. It will be Putin’s first visit to the US in a decade, his last being in 2015 for the UN General Assembly in New York, where he met then-President Barack Obama.
The announcement followed a Kremlin statement confirming the talks, which come after US envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow. Witkoff had proposed a trilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but Moscow gave no response.
Trump, who has been pushing for peace, expressed cautious optimism, saying there’s “a shot” at a deal. However, three previous rounds of direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv have failed, with both sides entrenched in their positions. The war, now in its fourth year, has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
