President Donald Trump will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15 to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine, in a summit that has drawn alarm in Kyiv and across Europe over potential territorial concessions to Moscow.
Trump confirmed the meeting Friday, saying "Putin would like to meet as soon as possible" and predicting the war "could be solved very soon." The Kremlin called the venue "quite logical" and said Trump had been invited to visit Russia after the talks.
In remarks to reporters, Trump said the plan under discussion would include "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both." That proposal aligns with earlier ideas floated by Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has suggested Ukraine cede the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk in exchange for a ceasefire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected any such move, reflecting deep public opposition to giving up land after four years of war.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Putin told Witkoff he would agree to halt fighting if Kyiv withdrew from the Donbass region. Bloomberg reported the deal would leave Russia in control of occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea, with Moscow seeking international recognition of its sovereignty over the peninsula annexed in 2014.
Ukrainian and Western officials fear the talks could replicate failed agreements in which Russia used ceasefires to regroup before resuming offensives. "It will be a big Russian and Kremlin diplomatic victory, because this is what Russians always wanted - to be on equal footing with such a large country as the United States," said Artis Pabriks, chair of the Northern Europe Policy Center and a former Latvian defense minister.
The timing favors Moscow. Russian forces are advancing toward key Donetsk towns including Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, while thousands of civilians remain in strategic cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Conceding these areas without a fight would hand Putin a symbolic and strategic win.
Putin's aide Yury Ushakov has framed the Alaska meeting as an opportunity to discuss broader U.S.-Russia economic cooperation, with a follow-up summit in Russia already proposed. European leaders, wary of any U.S.-brokered deal struck without Ukraine at the table, see echoes of 1938 appeasement policies that failed to deter aggression.
