Trump to meet Putin in Alaska on August 15 for high-stakes Ukraine peace talks

US President Donald Trump on Friday said that he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15 to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. “The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

He added that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was also involved in the peace negotiations and that the parties were close to a ceasefire deal to resolve the three-year conflict.

Trump stressed Zelenskyy’s role in any settlement: “Zelenskyy has to get all of his — everything he needs — because he’s going to have to get ready to sign something. And I think he is working hard to get that done.”

Addressing reporters at the White House earlier on Friday, Trump suggested the agreement would involve some exchange of land. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,” Trump said.

Trump’s announcement came just hours after unveiling a peace framework between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House, part of what he has described as an aggressive push to resolve multiple global conflicts.

The meeting will be Trump’s first in-person encounter with Putin since his return to the presidency. The choice of Alaska — strategically located between the United States and Russia, underscores the symbolic weight of the talks.

Putin’s trip to Alaska will mark his first visit to the United States in a decade. He last visited the country in September 2015, meeting President Barack Obama during the UN General Assembly in New York.

According to the State Department, Putin’s first trip to the US as Russia’s leader was in 2000, when he met President Bill Clinton at the UN Millennium Summit. The 2015 trip was his seventh as president, making the upcoming meeting with Trump in Alaska his eighth.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin said on Friday that Putin had called Chinese leader Xi Jinping to fill him in on his meeting with US envoy Steve Witkoff. The Kremlin said Xi voiced support for a long-term solution to the conflict.

Putin is also set to visit China next month. Meanwhile, the US accuses China, North Korea, and Iran of backing Russia’s war efforts.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a call with Putin too, talking about the latest developments in Ukraine. This comes just days after President Trump slapped a 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods over imports of Russian oil, aiming to cut off Russia’s war funding.

Besides Xi and Modi, Putin also reached out to leaders in South Africa, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus.

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