Today in Anchorage, Alaska, at 11:30 a.m. local time (3:30 p.m. ET), President Donald Trump will sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin for a highly anticipated meeting. Trump has suggested that Putin is likely willing to explore a deal to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, though he also tempered expectations, stating the chances of failure at 25%.
Vladimir Putin will set foot on Western soil on Friday for the first time since launching the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and reshaped global alliances. His destination is an unlikely one: Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, a sprawling Cold War installation built to monitor the Soviet Union and now hosting a meeting that could prove either a breakthrough or a public failure.
The visit comes just days after Russian forces made fresh gains on the battlefield, underscoring Moscow’s refusal to pull back as the conflict grinds into its third year.
The meeting was arranged after Putin himself floated the idea, an invitation Donald Trump accepted but with a notable edge of caution. The US president has repeatedly warned that the talks could be over “within minutes” if Putin refuses to compromise, telling reporters he rates the chances of success at “about one in four.” In public, Trump has framed the summit as a “feel-out meeting” rather than a moment for major agreements — a contrast to his trademark boastfulness about deal-making. “If it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly,” he said. “If it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.”
For European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the encounter will be watched with a mix of anxiety and resignation. Kyiv has been deliberately excluded from the Alaska talks despite Trump’s earlier insistence that any settlement would eventually involve a three-way meeting with Ukraine to “divvy up” territory seized by Russia. Zelensky has rejected such proposals outright, calling the summit “a personal victory” for Putin — an assessment that reflects fears in Kyiv that the meeting will legitimise Russia’s position without securing meaningful concessions.
Trump’s history with Putin adds another layer of intrigue. In 2018, he endured some of the fiercest criticism of his political career after a summit in which he appeared to accept the Russian president’s denials of election interference over the findings of US intelligence agencies.
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Since returning to the White House, he has been quick to blame his predecessor, Joe Biden, for the war, vowing to bring it to an end within 24 hours. Yet months of phone calls to the Kremlin have yielded no breakthrough, and Putin has shown little sign of compromise. A tense meeting at the White House in late February, where Trump publicly rebuked Zelensky, further strained relations with Kyiv but appeared to do nothing to shift Moscow’s position.
The Alaska meeting is expected to begin at 11:30 a.m. local time, with Putin and Trump meeting privately alongside interpreters before moving to a working lunch with their aides. Neither leader is expected to leave the base to visit Anchorage, where protesters have set up banners and displays of solidarity with Ukraine. The choice of venue carries symbolic weight: in 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia — a deal the Kremlin sometimes invokes when arguing the legitimacy of territorial swaps.
Putin’s trip comes despite an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, which has sharply curtailed his travel over the past two years. The United States is not a member of the court, and the Trump administration has temporarily eased sanctions on senior Russian officials to allow them to travel and access financial services while in Alaska. This move has already drawn criticism from some in Washington, who argue it sends the wrong signal to Moscow.
For Trump, the meeting represents both an opportunity and a political risk. His supporters will see it as a chance to deliver on his promise to end the war quickly; his critics warn it could turn into another moment, as in 2018, when he is seen as too deferential to the Russian leader.
For Putin, simply appearing alongside the US president on American soil is a significant achievement, breaking through the isolation that Western sanctions and political boycotts have sought to impose. Even without an agreement, the optics of the meeting — in a place so steeped in the history of US–Russian rivalry — will serve as a reminder that, in the end, both men still believe they have something to gain from sitting down together.