US President Donald Trump is meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, but the White House is signalling that major agreements are unlikely. Trump gives the talks a 25 percent chance of failure, while European Union leaders and the Ukranian leader worry he could concede too much.
Published On 15 Aug 202515 Aug 2025
United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday in a bid to try and end Russia’s three-year assault on Ukraine.
In the run-up to the meeting, Trump said that he believes Putin is ready to agree to a ceasefire. But his suggestion that Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could “divvy things up” has alarmed observers in Kyiv.
For their part, remarks from top Russian officials suggest that Moscow has tried to water down discussions about the war by linking them with other bilateral issues, particularly restoring economic ties with the US.
On Thursday, Putin sat down with top officials at the Kremlin to discuss the Alaska meeting. He said that he believed the US was making “sincere efforts to stop the fighting, end the crisis and reach agreements of interest to all parties involved in this conflict”.
Earlier on Thursday, Yuri Ushakov, one of Putin’s top foreign policy aides, told reporters about Russia’s preparations for the talks. He said it was “obvious to everyone that the central topic will be the settlement of the Ukraine crisis”.
“An exchange of views is expected on the further development of bilateral cooperation, including in the trade and economic sphere,” he said, pointing out that: “I would like to note that this cooperation has a huge and, unfortunately, untapped potential.”
Ushakov also announced that in addition to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s delegation in Alaska would also include the country’s finance minister, Anton Siluanov, and Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy on foreign investment and economic cooperation.
The inclusion of Siluanov and Dmitriev is another sign that the Kremlin hoped to discuss economic matters at the summit.
In 2021, before Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, total trade between Russia and the US amounted to $36.1bn. This included $6.4bn in US exports to Russia, and $29.7bn in US imports from Russia – amounting to a US trade deficit of $23.3bn.
For context, Russia was America’s 30th largest trade partner in 2021. Since then, after numerous rounds of American sanctions, trade between Russia and the US has fallen roughly 90 percent.
Incidentally, Russia’s overall trade balance – leaving the US – declined significantly following its decision to invade Ukraine. From 2022 to 2023, its international balance of payments fell by a whopping 70 percent, to just $86.3bn.
But back in 2021, Russia’s trade surplus with the US was concentrated almost exclusively in commodities. Oil, minerals and base metals like iron and steel made up roughly 75 percent of Russia’s exports. Meanwhile, US exports to Russia were concentrated in manufactured goods.
The short answer is no.
By the time Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the US – whose energy sector was transformed by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in the early 2000s – was already the world’s largest oil producer, at 11.9 million barrels of oil per day.
One area where Russia did hold limited significance was in certain types of energy products. Russia supplied certain grades of crude oil – notably Urals – as well as refined products like vacuum gas oil (VGO), residual fuel oil and naphtha.
Russian VGO was especially important for making gasoline and diesel products in US refineries, which lacked enough domestic feedstock with the optimal chemical and physical properties.
Elsewhere, the US continues to import limited quantities of uranium hexafluoride, a chemical important in uranium processing, from Russia. Some US utility companies still have supply contracts with Russia, which accounted for about one-third of America’s enriched uranium needs when war broke out.
As with energy products, however, American firms exposed to Russian uranium supplies have readjusted their supply chains in response to sanctions. What’s more, US companies like X-energy and Orano have invested heavily in domestic production in recent years.
In the wake of sanctions after February 2022, most Russian commodity shipments were rerouted from Western countries to China at discounted prices, including for energy products and uranium.
Indeed, trade between China and Russia has grown in parallel with sanctions on Russia. A common border, shared geopolitical perspectives and joint opposition to the US have deepened bilateral relations.
Russia-China trade saw annual growth of nearly 30 percent in both 2022 and 2023, when it hit $240.1bn, according to the Centre for European Policy Analysis. In 2024, Russia climbed to 7th place among China’s trading partners, up from 13th place in 2020.
During that time, China has supplied Russia with more high-end products – like advanced electronics and industrial machinery – while Moscow has solidified its position as a top supplier of oil and gas to Beijing.
What’s more, the two countries conduct regular naval exercises and strategic bomber patrols together. The US has consistently expressed concerns over joint military drills and views the China-Russia alignment as a threat to its global leadership role.
Putin will be aware of these dynamics heading into Friday’s meeting.
In March, Putin’s investment envoy – Kirill Dmitriev – claimed that Russia and the US had started talks on rare earth metals projects in Russia, and that some American companies had already expressed an interest in them.
“Rare earth metals are an important area for cooperation, and, of course, we have begun discussions on various rare earth metals and (other) projects in Russia,” Dmitriev told the Izvestia newspaper.
China’s almost total global control over the production of critical minerals – used in everything from defence equipment to consumer electronics – has focused Washington’s attention on developing its own supplies.
The US Geological Survey estimates Russia’s reserves of rare earth metals at 3.8 million tonnes, but Moscow has far higher estimates.
According to the Natural Resources Ministry, Russia has reserves of 15 rare earth metals totalling 28.7 million tonnes, as of January 2023.
But even accounting for the margin of error hanging over Russia’s potential rare earth supplies, it would still only account for a tiny fraction of global stockpiles.
As such, the US has been pursuing minerals-for-security deals with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ukraine in recent months, in an effort to wrestle control of the global supply chain away from China.
It may try and do the same with Russia.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Western countries have imposed 21,692 sanctions on Russia, mostly against individuals.
Key sanctions on Moscow include import bans on Russian oil, a price cap on Russian fuel, and the freezing of Russian central bank assets held in European financial institutions.
But on July 14, Trump threatened to impose so-called secondary sanctions, that if carried out, would mark a notable shift.
Since then, he has targeted India – the second biggest buyer of Russian oil – by doubling a 25 percent tariff on its goods to 50 percent, as a penalty for that trade with Moscow. So far, Trump has not imposed similar secondary tariffs on China, the largest consumer of Russian oil.
But he has suggested that Beijing could face such tariffs in the future, as the US tries to pressure countries to stop buying Russian crude, and thereby corner Putin into accepting a ceasefire.
Members of Trump’s administration have also indicated that if the Trump-Putin talks in Alaska don’t go well, the tariffs on India could be increased further.
Meanwhile, lawmakers from both US political parties are pushing for a bill – the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 – that would also target countries buying Russian oil and gas.
The bill would give Trump the authority to impose 500 percent tariffs on any country that helps Russia. US senators are reportedly waiting on Trump’s OK to move the bill forward.
In Alaska, Putin is expected to demand that Western sanctions on Russia be eased in exchange for Moscow agreeing to any peace deal.
United States President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday in a bid to find common ground that could lead to a lasting ceasefire deal in Russia’s three-year-long war on Ukraine.
The highly anticipated meeting is the latest in Trump’s numerous, but so far unsuccessful, attempts to end the Ukraine war and keep the promises he made on the campaign trail last year, when he claimed he would end the conflict within 24 hours if elected.
It also marks the first time in a decade that Putin will visit the US, as well as the first-ever visit of a Russian leader to Alaska.
While President Trump has tried to downplay expectations ahead of the meeting, he also warned on Thursday that Russia could face “serious consequences” if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire.
Here’s what to know about the Alaska meeting:
Both leaders will meet at the US military’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska.
The time of the meeting is scheduled for about 11:30am Alaska time (19:30 GMT), although this could change.
Accompanying Russian delegation members include: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov, and Special Presidential Envoy on Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation Kirill Dmitriev.
It is not yet clear who will accompany Trump for the meeting from the US side.
No, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not attend the Alaska meeting, nor will European leaders.
Asked why Zelenskyy was not at the table, Trump chided the Ukrainian president at a White House news briefing on August 11, saying that Zelenskyy had ruled for three years and “nothing happened” in terms of ending the war.
“I would say he could go, but he’s gone to a lot of meetings,” Trump said.
Analyst Neil Melvin of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a London-based think tank, said Europe was essentially an observer in a matter that could determine its fate because it lacked leverage. “European leaders have been relegated to the margins with the [European Union] seen by Trump and Putin as largely irrelevant,” he said.
Ahead of the meeting, on Wednesday, Trump, alongside US Vice President JD Vance, held a virtual meeting with Zelenskyy and other European leaders. Analysts say it was a final attempt on the part of the Europeans to steer the meeting in Ukraine’s favour.
Zelenskyy joined the virtual meeting from Berlin. Other leaders who attended were from Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Finland and Poland. European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen and NATO chief Mark Rutte were also present.
Alaska, which is located northwest of the US mainland, is the closest point at which Russia and the US are neighbours. The US state is closer to Russia than it is to the US mainland. On the Russian side, it is closest to the autonomous Chukotka district.
Originally inhabited by Indigenous Americans, the region was first colonised by the old Russian empire in the 18th century. Due to the high costs of maintaining the faraway location, Moscow sold Alaska to the US in 1867 for $7.2m, the equivalent of $162m today. Russian influence still abounds in the region, visible in the Russian Orthodox churches still present, and even in the Russian surnames of some Alaskans.
The Elmendorf-Richardson base, where the meeting will be held, is also significant: It was originally an air force base built in 1940, during World War II. But its role expanded significantly during the Cold War that followed. The US was worried about possible Soviet attacks on Alaska, and thus built monitors and anti-aircraft systems to counter any threats. The airbase was an important part of that mission. The air squadrons based there are still positioned to intercept any Russian aircraft that might seek to enter US airspace.
Still, the US has not clarified why it chose Alaska as the venue for the summit.
What’s on the agenda?The two leaders will discuss the terms for a possible ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
On the agenda is how such a deal could look, including possible territorial concessions on either side.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Its military currently controls about 19 percent of Ukrainian land across Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson and small parts of Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk provinces.
Ukraine controlled parts of Russia’s Kursk region from August 2024 but has since lost most of the territory.
Trump, on Monday, suggested in a news briefing that Ukraine and Russia could swap territory in order to reach a land deal.
However, he walked back that suggestion on Tuesday at another briefing as his suggestion proved controversial across Europe. Trump promised to get back some Ukrainian territory.
“Russia occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They occupied prime territory. We’re going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine,” he said.
As part of any swap deal, analysts believe that Putin will press for Ukraine to withdraw from the parts of Donetsk that its troops still control. That would give Russia complete control of the Donbas region, which includes Luhansk and Donetsk – Russia already controls almost all of Luhansk – in addition to Crimea and chunks of Kherson, Zaporizhia and other southern regions. It will also want Ukraine to relinquish the tiny part of Kursk in Russia that Kyiv’s forces occupy.
In exchange, Russia might be willing to give up the small areas in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions under its control.
Moscow invaded and illegally occupied Crimea in March 2014. Pro-Russian militias seized parts of the Donbas starting from April 2014, triggering conflict with resisting Ukrainian troops. Much of the region was then taken over by invading Russian forces following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
President Trump said on Monday that he expects this meeting to be a “feel-type” conversation between him and Putin, one where he understands what the Russian leader wants.
A second meeting, he has said, is likely going to come from it soon and will include Zelenskyy and Putin, with Trump likely hosting it.
However, Trump sounded a more severe tone on Wednesday. He warned that if the Friday meeting ended without Russia agreeing to peace in Ukraine, there would be “very severe consequences” for Russia.
Trump did not specify what US actions might be. He’d earlier threatened economic sanctions on Russia “within 50 days” if Moscow did not end the war. However, the Alaska meeting was announced as the deadline of August 8 arrived, with no significant action from Washington.
Presently, Russia is under significant Western sanctions, including bans on its banks and its crude oil. In late July, the US slammed India with tariffs for buying Russian oil, and this week, US officials have warned of secondary sanctions on that country if Friday’s talks fail.
Moscow presented a proposal to the US on August 6, last week, stating its requests, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
Russia’s asks remain similar to its stated goals in June 2024. Moscow says it will stop the war if:
But Russian officials have since also indicated that they want any movement towards peace to also serve as a launchpad for improved ties with the US. Putin’s delegation for the Alaska summit suggests that Russia might make economic offers – including the promise of investments in the US – to Trump.
Zelenkyy has in the past said that Ukraine will not cede territory.
He reiterated that on August 9, in light of Putin’s proposal to Trump, and stated that Ukraine would not “gift land to the occupier” and that it was impossible to do so under Ukrainian law.
Europe, meanwhile, has been nervous about what Trump might agree to. Following the three-way call between Trump, Zelenskyy and European leaders on Wednesday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer outlined what the European coalition wanted:
Some analysts are hopeful about the prospects of the beginnings of a peace deal emerging from the summit. The big question, they say, is whether Ukraine will agree to a possible deal between the two leaders in Alaska, if its terms are unplatable to Kyiv.
However, others, like Melvin of RUSI, think this meeting is ultimately a play by Russia to stall the US from making good on its sanctions threat, while allowing Moscow to keep advancing militarily in Ukraine.
“Putin believes that he can win [and] is anxious to stall the United States and any further pressure it may seek to put on Russia,” he said. “The most likely outcome of the summit is then that there may be some announcements of steps forward, but the war will continue.”
United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, following a virtual meeting with European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump warned of “severe consequences” if Putin refuses to accept a ceasefire after more than three years of war.
The venue for the high-profile meeting is Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a US military installation on the northern edge of Alaska’s most populous city.
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is Alaska’s largest military base. The 64,000-acre outfit is a key US site for Arctic military drills and readiness.
When Trump visited the base during his first term, in 2019, he said the troops there “serve in our country’s last frontier as America’s first line of defence”.
But that wasn’t always the case. Indeed, the US government actually bought Alaska from Russia – separated by just 90km (55 miles) at the narrowest point of the Bering Strait – in 1867.
At a news briefing on August 9, Russian presidential assistant Yuri Ushakov pointed out that the two countries are neighbours.
“It seems quite logical for our delegation simply to fly over the Bering Strait and for such an important … summit of the leaders of the two countries to be held in Alaska,” Ushakov said.
When Russian Tsar Peter the Great dispatched the Danish navigator Vitus Bering in 1725 to explore the Alaskan coast, Russia already had a high interest in the region, which was rich in natural resources – including lucrative sea otter pelts – and sparsely populated.
Then, in 1799, Emperor Paul I granted the “Russian-American Company” a monopoly over governance in Alaska. This state-sponsored group established settlements like Sitka, which became the colonial capital after Russia ruthlessly overcame the native Tlingit tribe in 1804.
Russia’s Alaskan ambitions, however, quickly faced numerous challenges – the vast distance from then-capital St Petersburg, harsh climates, supply shortages, and growing competition from American explorers.
As the US expanded westward in the early 1800s, Americans soon found themselves toe to toe with Russian traders. What’s more, Russia lacked the resources to support major settlements and a military presence along the Pacific coast.
The history of the region then changed dramatically in the mid-19th century.
The Crimean War (1853-1856) started when Russia invaded the Turkish Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, modern-day Romania. Wary of Russian expansion into their trade routes, Britain and France allied with the ailing Ottoman Empire.
The war’s main theatre of battle became the Crimean Peninsula, as British and French forces targeted Russian positions in the Black Sea, which connects to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits – previously controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
After three years, Russia humiliatingly lost the war, forcing it to reassess its colonial priorities. According to calculations by Advocate for Peace, a journal published by the American Peace Society in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Russia spent the equivalent of 160 million pounds sterling on the war.
Meanwhile, due to overhunting, Alaska yielded little profit by the mid-1800s. Its proximity to British-controlled Canada also made it a liability in any future Anglo-Russian conflict.
By the early 1860s, Tsar Alexander II concluded that selling Alaska would both raise funds Russia desperately needed and prevent Britain from seizing it in a future war. The US, which had continued to expand across the continent, emerged as a willing buyer, leading to the 1867 Alaska Purchase.
After the American Civil War ended in 1865, Secretary of State William Seward took up Russia’s longstanding offer to buy Alaska. On March 30, 1867, Washington agreed to buy Alaska from Russia for $7.2m.
For less than 2 cents an acre (4 metres), the US acquired nearly 1.5 million sq km (600,000 square miles) of land and ensured access to the Pacific northern rim. But opponents of the Alaska Purchase, who saw little value in the vast ice sheet, persisted in calling it “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox”.
“We simply obtain by the treaty the nominal possession of impassable deserts of snow, vast tracts of dwarf timbers… we get… Sitka and the Prince of Wales Islands. All the rest is waste territory,” wrote the New York Daily Tribune in April 1867.
But in 1896, the Klondike Gold Strike convinced even the harshest critics that Alaska was a valuable addition to US territory. Over time, the strategic importance of Alaska was gradually recognised, and in January 1959 Alaska finally became a US state.
By the early 20th century, Alaska’s economy began to diversify away from gold. Commercial fishing, especially for salmon and halibut, became a major industry, while copper mining boomed in places like Kennecott.
Then, during World War II, the construction of military bases brought infrastructure improvements and population growth. The most transformative moment, however, came in 1968 with the discovery of vast oil reserves at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic coast.
Oil revenues became the cornerstone of Alaska’s economy, funding public services as well as the Alaska Permanent Fund, which pays annual dividends – via returns on stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets – to residents.
These payments, known as the Permanent Fund Dividend, will ensure that Alaska’s oil wealth continues to benefit residents even after reserves run out. This system has allowed Alaska to have no state income tax or state sales tax, a rarity in the US.
More recently, tourism has surged in Alaska, drawing visitors to the state’s national parks and glaciers. Today, Alaska has transformed from a ridiculed purchase into a resource-rich state, built on a mix of natural resource extraction, fishing and tourism.
Meanwhile, despite Alaska’s history of trading land like currency, President Zelenskyy will hope that Friday’s meeting between Trump and Putin does not come at the expense of Ukrainian territory.
DONALD Trump and Vladimir Putin are just hours away from holding a historic one-on-one meeting which could shape global politics.
The world’s eyes are poised on Alaska today as leaders of both superpowers prepare to sit down in a peace summit that could decide the fate of Ukraine.
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On Thursday afternoon, Trump likened the high-stakes talks to a game of chess as he warned there is a 25 per cent chance it could end in failure.
He also vowed that Putin “is not going to mess around with me”, insisting the Russian leader “wants a deal” but would face consequences if he becomes greedy.
Trump and Putin are set to meet one-on-one at Elmendorf-Richardson base near Anchorage at 11.30am local time (8.30pm UK) — under extraordinary security.
Putin, who rarely travels abroad since launching his full-scale invasion, will arrive with his feared “Musketeers” bodyguards.
They are notorious for coming armed with everything from armour-piercing pistols to the infamous nuclear briefcase — and even a “poo suitcase” to stop any analysis of Vlad’s health.
The Cold War-era military base has been locked down by US and Russian forces since the meeting was announced last week.
Over 32,000 troops, air defences, and electronic jamming systems are all in place waiting for today’s link up.
The crunch talks will be followed by a joint press conference by both leaders.
The main topic of the meeting will be crisis in Ukraine with Trump pushing to strike a deal with the Kremlin to end the bloodshed.
Also on the agenda will be trade and economic cooperation, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov added.
Trump and Putin will also have a wider meeting with delegations from Washington and Moscow.
They will then attend a working lunch with their security entourage.
For Trump, the meeting stands as a chance to bring peace to war-torn Ukraine and end a conflict which he said would never have started if he were the president back in 2022.
And for Putin, the meeting will decide how much territory he can grab before ending his bloody assault.
The Russian leader, who has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire, said that he wants peace but that his demands for ending his invasion were “unchanged”.
One major sticking point for Moscow is the annexation of more Ukrainian territory – one of Putin’s long-term demands.
It is understood that Trump will try to convince Putin to make peace by offering him deals and concessions.
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Though Washington has said that it will not engage in any agreement on a final peace deal without Ukraine’s formal involvement in the negotiations.
Trump has insisted a deal won’t be made without Ukraine’s blessing with a second meeting set to be arranged soon.
He hinted at a more “important” second round of talks taking place “very quickly” — this time with Volodymyr Zelensky and “maybe some European leaders” in the room.
Putin has tried to sweeten the mood, praising Trump’s “sincere efforts” for peace, even as Zelensky warns he is “bluffing”.
If Putin agrees to a possible ceasefire, both leaders will reach the next stage of peace-making, where they are expected to hold a trilateral meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump has vowed “very severe consequences” if this turns out to be the case.
Zelensky, fresh from meetings with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and UK PM Sir Keir Starmer, has warned that any talks without Ukraine risk disaster.
Don, who hails himself as a great dealmaker, is said to be planning to present a money-making deal to lure sanctions-hit Putin into peace-making.
The deal will include opening up Alaska’s natural resources to Moscow and lifting some of the American sanctions on Russia’s aviation industry, The Telegraph revealed.
Proposals also include giving Putin access to the rare earth minerals in the Ukrainian territories currently occupied by Russia.
Trump is seemingly betting on Russia‘s current economy, which has been hit hard by global sanctions since he launched his illegal invasion of Ukraine.
There is also a chance that the meeting could go south as Trump warned that the Russians risk facing “very severe consequences” if they continue to bomb Ukraine and kill innocent civilians.
DONALD Trump and Vladimir Putin last met in person at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019.
It was during Trump’s first term as the president of America.
The meeting is widely remembered for a moment where Trump, with a smile, publicly warned the Russian leader: “Don’t meddle in the election, please.”
Their private discussions reportedly touched upon arms control, trade, and regional security issues
More than anyone else, the meeting will be key to European leaders who have long supported Ukraine and warned against future Russian aggression.
Zelensky and European leaders are likely to reject any settlement proposals by the US that demand Ukraine give up further land.
They want to freeze the current frontline as it is – giving away the territory already being held by the Russians.
Zelensky has reiterated that Ukraine will not cede any further territory to Russia.
But it may not be up to the embattled leader if he is presented with a take it or leave it offer in the latter stages of the peace process.
Trump announced on Friday that the only way to resolve the issues is for both sides to accept losses of land.
He said: “It’s complicated, actually. Nothing is easy. It’s very complicated.
“We’re going to get some switched. There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.”
The MAGA president said he would try to return territory to Ukraine.
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Don added: “Russia has occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They’ve occupied some very prime territory.
“We’re going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine.”
After Trump held a call with the European leaders on Thursday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed that Trump reaffirmed that Trump would not negotiate territorial issues with Putin.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron will not be engaging in any “schemes for territory swaps” during the summit.
The summit is set to take place at Elmendorf-Richardson base, one of the most strategic locations in the Arctic.
Bristling with troops from the US Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as National Guardsmen and Reserves, it is a symbolic location for both the US and Russia.
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ANCHORAGE — Vladimir Putin is lavishing praise on President Trump ahead of their high-stakes summit in Alaska on Friday, thanking his host for “energetic and sincere efforts to stop the fighting” in Ukraine over three years since the Russian leader attempted to conquer the country.
Trump, at the White House, also expressed optimism ahead of the talks, telling reporters he believes Putin “would like to see a deal” after suffering more than a million Russian casualties on the battlefield.
Yet Russian Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday that Putin’s war aims remain “unchanged.” And an aggressive Russian advance along the front lines this week provided evidence to military analysts that Moscow has no plans to implement a ceasefire.
It was a day of diplomatic maneuvering ahead of an extraordinary visit from a Russian president to the U.S. homeland, and the first audience Putin has received with a Western leader since the war began.
“It’s going to be very interesting — we’re going to find out where everybody stands,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “If it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly. And if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the very near future.”
Putin’s positioning ahead of the summit, and Trump’s eagerness for a deal, continue to fuel worries across Europe and in Ukraine that the Alaska negotiations could result in a bilateral agreement designed by Moscow and endorsed by Washington that sidelines Kyiv.
In London, Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, offering support for Trump’s effort while placing the onus on Putin to “prove he is serious about peace.”
“They agreed there had been a powerful sense of unity and a strong resolve to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” 10 Downing Street said in a statement.
Trump said the Alaska summit, to be held at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, is meant to “set the table” for direct talks between Putin and Zelensky that could include himself and European leaders.
Journalists stand outside Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage on Thursday ahead of Friday’s summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
But addressing reporters, Trump suggested that denying Putin dominion over all of Ukraine — and allowing him to hold on to the territories he has seized militarily — would be concession enough from Moscow. The president had said in recent days that land “swapping” would be part of an ultimate peace settlement, a statement rejected by Kyiv.
“I think President Putin would like to see a deal,” Trump said. “I think if I weren’t president, he would take over all of Ukraine.”
“I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me,” he added.
Russian state media reported Thursday that Putin had gathered his advisors to inform them of “how the negotiation process on the Ukrainian crisis is going.”
Trump, “in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the fighting, stop the crisis and reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved in this conflict,” Putin said.
But U.S. efforts to get Russia to halt the fighting have proved futile for months, with Moscow pressing forward in an offensive that has secured incremental gains on the battlefield.
“Putin thinks that he is winning this war militarily,” said Frederick Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project, which collaborates with the Institute for the Study of War to produce daily battlefield assessments on the conflict. “He’s also confident that Western support for Ukraine, and particularly U.S. support, will break, and that when it does, Ukraine will collapse, and he’ll be able to take control of the whole thing.”
“It’s been his theory of victory for a long time,” Kagan said, “and it’s a huge part of the problem, because he’s not going to make any concessions so long as he’s confident that he’s winning.”
Russian incursions along a strategic portion of the front line, near a crucial Ukrainian logistics hub, spooked Ukraine’s supporters earlier this week. While serious, Kagan said that Russia does not hold the territory, and said that the conditions for offensive Russian operations had been set over the course of months.
“The Russians continue to have the initiative, and they continue to make gains,” he added. “The first step in changing Putin’s calculation about the war is to urgently help the Ukrainians stop the gains.”
Zelensky, after meeting with Starmer in London, said that he and the British leader had “discussed expectations for the meeting in Alaska and possible prospects.”
“We also discussed in considerable detail the security guarantees that can make peace truly durable,” Zelensky said, “if the United States succeeds in pressing Russia to stop the killings and engage in genuine, substantive diplomacy.”
Trump and Putin plan on arriving of the U.S. airbase within moments of one another, and are expected to meet on the tarmac before retreating into a private meeting.
Afterward, Trump and Putin will take questions from the press, the White House said.
President Trump says the Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin could “set the table” for trilateral talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He denied the meeting rewarded Putin, as critics warned it could undermine US efforts to isolate Russia.
Published On 14 Aug 202514 Aug 2025
Aug. 14 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump said his goal is to save Ukrainian and Russian lives during Friday’s peace summit that will be held at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska.
The high-level meeting was announced last week, and it is hoped that it will lead to an end to the war in Ukraine.
“We’re going to see what happens with our meeting,” Trump said when a reporter asked if the United States might offer Russia access to rare-earth minerals as an incentive to end the war in Ukraine.
The meeting “is going to be very important for Russia and very important for us only in that we are going to save a lot of lives,” Trump said during a Thursday afternoon press conference at the White House.
He said the United States is being paid in full for military equipment obtained by Ukraine through NATO.
“We’re not spending any money anymore,” the president said. “[President Joe] Biden gave them $350 billion, [and] we got nothing for it.”
He said a rare-earth minerals deal with Ukraine will help the United States recoup its costs for helping Ukraine in its defense against Russia, which invaded the nation in February 2022.
“What I’m really doing this for is to save thousands of soldiers a week,” Trump said. “Last week they lost 7,251 people, mostly Russian and Ukrainian soldiers.”
Friday’s summit won’t be the most important meeting to end the Ukraine war, he added.
A second meeting that would include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be the most important, Trump said.
Putin on Thursday announced his intentions for Friday’s Alaska summit.
The Trump administration “has been making what I consider to be fairly vigorous and sincere efforts to halt hostilities, resolve the crisis and reach agreements that serve the interests of all parties involved in this conflict,” Putin said in an address to “colleagues.”
“The aim is to establish long-term conditions for peace not only between our countries but also in Europe and indeed globally,” Putin added,” especially if we proceed to subsequent stages involving agreements on strategic offensive arms control.”
The summit will be held at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage and starts at 11:30 a.m. ADT, according to Putin aide Yury Ushakov.
Near the military base, “a memorial cemetery holds the remains of nine Soviet pilots, two military personnel and two civilians who perished between 1942 and 1945 while ferrying aircraft from the United States to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program,” Ushakov said.
“Thus, the meeting will unfold near a site of profound historical importance — one that underscores the wartime camaraderie between our nations,” he said.
The summit will start with a one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin with interpreters present, followed by a delegation format that extends into a working lunch.
Each delegation will have five members, in addition to Trump and Putin, and the two presidents will hold a joint press conference afterward.
Ahead of Friday’s summit, Zelensky met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the Prime Minister’s Office at 10 Downing Street in London.
The meeting was to show the United Kingdom’s support of Ukraine after Zelensky was not invited to Friday’s Alaska summit.
LONDON — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised President Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine, more than three years after Moscow launched its invasion, as the two leaders prepared for a pivotal U.S.–Russia summit Friday in Alaska.
Following a meeting Thursday with top government officials on the summit, Putin said in a short video released by the Kremlin that the Trump administration was making “quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the hostilities” and to “reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved.”
Putin also suggested that “long-term conditions of peace between our countries, and in Europe, and in the world as a whole,” could be reached under an agreement with the U.S. on nuclear arms control.
In Washington, Trump said there was a 25% chance that the summit would fail, but he also floated the idea that, if the meeting succeeds, he could bring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting.
In a radio interview with Fox News, Trump also said he might be willing to stay in Alaska longer, depending on what happens with Putin.
Meanwhile, Zelensky and other European leaders worked to ensure their interests are taken into account when Trump and Putin meet in Anchorage.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed Zelensky to London on Thursday in a show of British support for Ukraine a day before the critical Trump-Putin meeting. The two embraced warmly outside Starmer’s offices at 10 Downing Street without making any comments, and Zelensky departed about an hour later.
Zelensky’s trip to the British capital came a day after he took part in virtual meetings from Berlin with Trump and the leaders of several European countries. Those leaders said that Trump had assured them that he would make a priority of trying to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine when he meets with Putin.
Speaking after the meetings to reporters, Trump warned of “very severe consequences” for Russia if Putin doesn’t agree to stop the war against Ukraine after Friday’s meeting.
While some European leaders, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron, praised Wednesday’s video conference with Trump as constructive, uncertainty remained over how the U.S. leader — whose rhetoric toward both Zelensky and Putin has evolved dramatically since retaking office this year — would conduct negotiations in the absence of any other interested parties.
Both Zelensky and the Europeans have worried that the bilateral U.S.-Russia summit would leave them and their interests sidelined, and that any conclusions could favor Moscow and leave Ukraine and Europe’s future security in jeopardy.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov tamped down expectations for any breakthroughs from the Friday summit, saying there were no plans to sign documents and that it would be a “big mistake” to predict the results of the negotiations, according to Russian news outlet Interfax.
The Kremlin on Thursday said the meeting between Trump and Putin would begin at 11:30 a.m. local time. Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters that Trump and Putin will first sit down for a one-on-one meeting followed by a meeting between the two delegations. Then talks will continue over “a working breakfast.” A joint news conference will follow.
Trump contradicted the Kremlin, saying that no decisions have been made about holding a news conference with Putin. The uncertainty reflects just how much about the summit, including its schedule, remains unsettled.
Starmer said Wednesday that the Alaska summit could be a path to a ceasefire in Ukraine, but he also alluded to European concerns that Trump may strike a deal that forces Ukraine to cede territory to Russia. He warned that Western allies must be prepared to step up pressure on Russia if necessary.
During a call Wednesday among leaders of countries involved in the “coalition of the willing” — those who are prepared to help police any future peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv — Starmer stressed that any ceasefire deal must protect the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine.
“International borders cannot be, and must not be changed by force,’’ he said.
Kyiv has long insisted that safeguards against future Russian attacks provided by its Western allies would be a precondition for achieving a durable end to the fighting. Yet many Western governments have been hesitant to commit military personnel.
Countries in the coalition, which includes France and the U.K., have been trying for months to secure U.S. security backing, should it be required. Following Wednesday’s virtual meetings, Macron said Trump told the assembled leaders that while NATO must not be part of future security guarantees, “the United States and all the parties involved should take part.”
“It’s a very important clarification that we have received,” Macron said.
Trump did not reference any U.S. security commitments during his comments to reporters on Wednesday.
With another high-level meeting on their country’s future on the horizon, some Ukrainians expressed skepticism about the summit’s prospects.
Oleksandra Kozlova, 39, who works at a digital agency in Kyiv, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she believes Ukrainians “have already lost hope” that meaningful progress can be made toward ending the war.
“I don’t think this round will be decisive,” she said. “There have already been enough meetings and negotiations promising us, ordinary people, that something will be resolved, that things will get better, that the war will end. Unfortunately, this has not happened, so personally I don’t see any changes coming.”
Anton Vyshniak, a car salesman in Kyiv, said Ukraine’s priority now should be saving the lives of its military service members, even at the expense of territorial concessions.
“At the moment, the most important thing is to preserve the lives of male and female military personnel. After all, there are not many human resources left,” he said. “Borders are borders, but human lives are priceless.”
Zelensky said Thursday that Ukraine had secured the release of 84 people from Russian captivity, including both soldiers and civilians. Those freed included people held by Russia since 2014, 2016 and 2017, as well as soldiers who had defended the now Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday that it too had received 84 soldiers as part of a prisoner exchange.
In other developments, Russian strikes in Ukraine’s Sumy region overnight Wednesday resulted in numerous injuries, Ukrainian regional officials said. A missile strike on a village in the Seredyna-Budska community wounded a 7-year-old girl and a 27-year-old man, according to regional governor Oleh Hryhorov. The girl was hospitalized in stable condition.
In Russia, a Ukrainian drone attack damaged several apartment buildings in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, near the border with Ukraine, where 13 civilians were wounded, according to acting governor of the region, Yuri Slyusar. Two of the wounded were hospitalized in serious condition, Slyusar said.
Pylas and Spike write for the Associated Press. Spike reported from Budapest, Hungary. AP writers Lorne Cook in Brussels; Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine; Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England; Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.
ANCHORAGE — The first presidential summit in years between Russia and the United States is on, setting nerves in Europe and Ukraine on a knife’s edge. But President Trump may have a surprise in store for Vladimir Putin.
Efforts to scuttle the high-stakes meeting have not been subtle. European officials issued statements in recent days on the futility of Trump negotiating with Putin over Ukraine without Ukraine, urging the U.S. president on Wednesday to not cut a unilateral deal. Kyiv warned that Moscow’s proposals for peace — rewarding its war of conquest with territorial concessions — are a nonstarter. Many Russia experts are hoping one side simply decides to call it off.
Despite their efforts, the summit — haphazardly scheduled on American soil with days to spare — is moving ahead, with Trump scheduled to host the Russian leader at a U.S. military base in Anchorage on Friday, the first meeting of its kind since 2021.
Experts fear Putin may be laying a trap for the Americans, manipulating Trump in private to solidify Russia’s position on the battlefield. But Trump suggested Wednesday that he would demand Putin agree to a ceasefire in Alaska.
“There will be very severe consequences” if he doesn’t, Trump told reporters.
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Hosting the meeting is an about-face from Trump, who over much of the summer appeared in the throes of a remarkable transformation on Putin, criticizing the Russian leader in harsh terms for the first time. To the relief and delight of Europe, Trump appeared to be losing his patience — embarrassed, even — at Putin’s open refusal to heed his calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
But Trump’s threats of a response, increasing sanctions against Russia and its trading partners, lasted only a matter of days.
On Aug. 6, the president’s special envoy on the crisis, Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor with no experience in diplomacy and no background in the region, was dispatched to Moscow. Planning for a summit began within hours of his departure from the Kremlin.
On Tuesday, as White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the summit would amount to a “listening session” for Trump on Putin’s interest in peace, battlefield reports emerged of a significant Russian breach in Ukrainian lines.
In a phone call, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Trump that Putin was “bluffing” on his commitments to peace, pressing ahead with an offensive to gain more territory. “There should be joint pressure on Russia, there should be sanctions — and there should be a message that if Russia doesn’t agree to a ceasefire in Alaska, this principle should work,” Zelensky said Wednesday.
“It sure looks like it’s moving in the wrong direction,” John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor in his first term, told The Times, dismissing Witkoff as a chief culprit behind what he fears is a coming diplomatic crisis: “Better send the Bobbsey twins.”
The perils of this meeting, Bolton said, lie in Putin’s skills as a manipulator. The Russian president may well convince Trump that his designs on Ukraine are reasonable — and the only way forward.
“There’s a very grave risk it does become an almost take-it-or-leave-it proposition for Zelensky,” Bolton said. On Wednesday morning, Trump criticized the media for being “very unfair” to him for quoting “fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton.”
Russia invaded the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and its eastern regions in 2014, and launched a full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. Nearly a million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in pursuit of Vladimir Putin’s war of conquest, according to independent analysts, with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers adding to the casualty count.
“Clearly, Trump wants to sit down with the guy that he thinks is his friend again,” Bolton said. “And from Putin’s point of view, he doesn’t want any pesky Europeans around — and particularly not Zelensky. He wants to see if he can correct the damage he did.”
President Trump shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at 2018 Helsinki summit.
(Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press)
Seven years ago, entering a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Trump set a similar bar for success as Leavitt has this week. “I don’t expect anything,” Trump said in an interview at the time from Scotland, before leaving for Helsinki. “I go in with very low expectations.”
On Air Force One en route to Helsinki, he cast himself as a dealmaker and tweeted that, “no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia,” it would still not be enough to earn him praise. He repeated the turn of phrase Wednesday morning in his post criticizing Bolton.
“If I got Moscow and Leningrad free,” Trump wrote, “as part of the deal with Russia, the Fake News would say that I made a bad deal!”
What resulted was a meeting and subsequent news conference that produced one of the most notorious moments of Trump’s first term. On the heels of calling the European Union a “foe” of the United States, Trump stood beside Putin and took his side over the U.S. intelligence community, disputing its assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
Experts fear that a similar diplomatic rupture could unfold if Trump, deferential to Putin, emerges from their meeting Friday siding with the Russian leader over Ukraine in the war.
In recent days, Trump has said that a deal between the two sides would have to include land “swapping” — territorial concessions that are prohibited by the Ukrainian Constitution without a public vote of support — and that he would give Zelensky the “courtesy” of a call after his meeting with Putin, if all goes well.
“This will be the first U.S.-Russia summit brought about by sheer ignorance and incompetence: The U.S. president and his chosen envoy mistook a Russian demand for a concession,” said Brian Taylor, director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at Syracuse University.
“Ultimately, this is not a war about this or that piece of territory, but about whether Russia can establish political control over Ukraine, or whether Ukraine will remain free to choose its own domestic and international path,” Taylor said. “Trump’s false suggestion again that Zelensky is somehow at fault for Russia invading Ukraine indicates he still does not understand how we got here or what’s at stake.”
Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the University of Chicago who has been sentenced in absentia to 8½ years in prison in Russia for publishing information on a Russian massacre of Ukrainian civilians at Bucha, said that Trump’s attempts to negotiate away Ukrainian territory could be diplomatically disastrous — but will make little difference on the ground.
“This is not a very popular view, but I am not sure that the U.S. has that much leverage over President Zelensky to force him into major concessions,” Sonin said. “Many European countries would support Ukraine no matter what — even at the cost of their relationship with the U.S. With full withdrawal of the U.S. support, the catastrophic scenario, Ukraine will still be able to fight on.”
Kremlinologists tend to believe Putin’s training as a KGB officer at the end of the Cold War gave him unique skills to navigate the world stage.
In Helsinki — as he had so often done with other world leaders, including the queen of England and the pope — Putin kept Trump waiting for half an hour, seen as a move to throw off the U.S. delegation leading up to the meeting.
Last week, in his meeting with Witkoff, the Russian president offered an Order of Lenin to a CIA official whose son died in Ukraine fighting for Russian forces.
Russia watchers fear that Friday will be no different. Already, Putin has secured a meeting with the U.S. president on his own terms.
“Whatever else you think about Putin, he’s an experienced and clever ruler who has successfully manipulated Trump in the past,” Taylor said. “Putin’s intransigence in rejecting Trump’s proposed ceasefire led not to the sanctions that Trump promised to apply last Friday, but an invitation to the United States for a summit at which the U.S. president has already signaled he will endorse territorial changes achieved through military conquest.”
But there may also be pitfalls in store for Putin, experts said.
Trump’s shift in tone on Putin since a NATO summit in The Hague in June suggests it is possible, if unlikely, that Trump is preparing to enter the meeting with a tougher stance. In recent months, the president has seen political benefit in catching world leaders off guard, berating Zelensky and South Africa’s leader in the Oval Office with cameras rolling.
At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit, showered in praise by European leaders, Trump said in unusually clear terms that he was with the alliance “all the way.” Days later, he accused Putin of throwing “meaningless … bull—” at him and his team over the Ukraine war.
“I think there is some risk for Putin,” Sonin said. “He is not comfortable in any kind of adversarial situation — he quickly gets angry and defensive. And President Trump has the ability to put people in uncomfortable situations publicly. He has never done this to Putin before, but who knows.”
To Bolton, the best outcome of the summit would be that Putin fails to persuade Trump that he’s seriously interested in peace.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen, but it’s possible,” Bolton said. “I think in the environment that they’ve got, one on one — only Russians and Americans present — that’s ideal for Putin to do his thing.”
“So he’s got what he wants,” Bolton added. “He’s on American soil, with no one else around.”
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Sarah Palin’s family was thrust into the national spotlight in 2008 when Sen. John McCain picked her to be his GOP running mate in the campaign for president.
Now, after years of attention that accompanied Palin’s role as a popular and controversial conservative advocate and media personality, the family is once again under scrutiny, this time after her eldest son was arrested on suspicion of breaking into his parents’ home and beating his father.
Painful new details emerged Monday about the arrest of Track Palin, who at one point pleaded with his father to shoot him, according to a police affidavit. The document said his father, Todd, was brandishing a gun but refused to shoot.
After his arrest Saturday, Track Palin, 28, was charged with first-degree burglary, fourth-degree assault and criminal mischief. He remains in custody. The police affidavit, contained in a court filing, describes a chaotic scene at the family’s home in Wasilla, Alaska, when Palin confronted his father over a truck he wanted to pick up.
Todd Palin had told him not to come to the home because Track Palin had been drinking and taking pain medication, according to the affidavit and charging documents.
“Track told him he was [going to] come anyway to beat his ass,” according to an affidavit filed by Wasilla Police Officer Adam LaPointe.
When Todd Palin, 53, confronted his son at the door with a pistol, the younger Palin broke a window and entered the house and started beating his father, according to court filings. Palin pushed his father to the ground and hit him repeatedly on the head, the documents say.
Sarah Palin called police at 8:30 p.m. and said her son was “freaking out and was on some type of medication.”
When police arrived, they saw Todd and Sarah Palin fleeing the house in separate vehicles, Todd Palin with blood running down his face and Sarah Palin looking “visibly upset,” the documents say.
Police confronted Track Palin in the home. He called them “peasants” and told them to lay down their weapons, according to the documents. Eventually, Palin left the house and was placed in handcuffs.
He told police that when he arrived at the house, his father aimed his gun at him, and he urged his father to shoot him several times before entering the house, according to the documents.
When policed interviewed Todd Palin, he was bleeding from multiple cuts to his head, and one ear was discharging liquid, the documents say. There is no record of an interview with Sarah Palin; the Wasilla Police Department did not respond to a question about whether its officers interviewed her.
A judge set Track Palin’s bail at $5,000. He remains in custody at the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility in Palmer, Alaska. Palmer Dist. Atty. Roman J. Kalytiak said that if Palin remains in custody, his office must take the case to the grand jury within 10 days. If Palin pays bail and is released, prosecutors will have 20 days to go before the grand jury.
An attorney for Sarah and Todd Palin declined to comment on the case.
“Given the nature of actions addressed … by law enforcement and the charges involved, the Palins are unable to comment further,” John Tiemessen said in a statement. “They ask that the family’s privacy is respected during this challenging situation just as others dealing with a struggling family member would also request.”
Todd Palin declined to comment about the incident, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
“We’re fine. We’re fine,” he said when asked whether he sought medical treatment.
Sarah Palin has not commented publicly about the encounter. On social media, she has continued to offer her take on current events and politics.
The incident is the latest controversy involving the Palins since McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate in 2008. At the time, she had been governor of Alaska for less than two years and was a relative unknown in the Lower 48 states. Just days after Palin was named as the vice presidential nominee, she acknowledged that her unmarried teenage daughter Bristol was pregnant.
In the aftermath of the campaign, she faced criticism over her behavior and her spending habits.
In 2014, the family was involved in a drunken brawl on Todd Palin’s birthday, though no one was charged. Track Palin, shirtless and bleeding, “appeared heavily intoxicated and he acted belligerent” during his initial interaction with police officers, according to an Anchorage Police Department report.
In January 2016, Track Palin was arrested on suspicion of punching his girlfriend at the same Wasilla home. He pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm while intoxicated and took a plea deal that resulted in other charges being dismissed. His girlfriend later filed for custody of their child and sought a protective order against him.
At the time of that arrest, Sarah Palin was campaigning for then-candidate Donald Trump during the GOP primaries and caucuses. She alluded to her son’s arrest during a campaign rally, suggesting that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from a military deployment in Iraq.
She described soldiers “who come home from the battlefield bringing new battles with them [and] coming back different than when they left for the war zone.”
“When my own son is going through what he goes through coming back, I can certainly relate to other families who feel these ramifications of PTSD,” she said, before accusing then-President Obama of not respecting veterans.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin frequently spoke of her son’s service in the military. He was stationed in Iraq during most of the general election campaign.
McCain’s selection eventually proved unpopular among some conservatives who questioned whether Palin had the experience and knowledge to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
But Palin’s folksy personality and colloquialisms strongly resonated with the party’s base, and she became a powerful force in national GOP politics after her and McCain’s loss. She resigned as governor the following year but was a frequent presence in the media and on the campaign trail as a forceful critic of President Obama and an early supporter of the tea party. Palin sparred with the GOP establishment, and her endorsement swung Republican primary races and drew dollars.
She was the subject of several books as well as a documentary by Stephen K. Bannon. She starred in a television show and flirted with a presidential run in 2012. Her prominence has waned since then, but she remains a popular draw among socially conservative voters.
Todd and Sarah Palin met in high school and wed in 1988. He worked in oil production on the North Slope of Alaska and as a commercial fisherman. Todd Palin, a champion snowmobile racer, liked to refer to himself as the “first dude” when his wife was governor.
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UPDATES:
6:40 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional background.
3:50 p.m.: This article has been updated with background, Wasilla police not responding to question about Sarah Palin.
1:40 p.m.: This article has been updated with statements from the Palins’ attorney and a district attorney.
This article was originally posted at 12:50 p.m.
Ukraine and European allies are anxious about the upcoming Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Alaska for talks on the war in Ukraine.
But concern is increasing in Kyiv and among its European allies over fears of Ukraine being sidelined.
So, what’s at stake at the Alaska summit for all sides?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Anatol Lieven – Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Steven Erlanger – Chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for The New York Times
Alex Titov – Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and a specialist in Russian foreign policy
Aug. 13 (UPI) — Ahead of President Donald Trump‘s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, the European Union will have a call with him Wednesday to remind him that he shouldn’t negotiate without Ukraine.
The call on Wednesday, organized by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, will include Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and several European leaders who are friendly with Trump, like Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Zelensky will be in Berlin for the meeting, his office said on Wednesday, and is expected to later brief reporters with Merz.
At the Friday meeting in Alaska, Trump will meet with Putin to try to end the war with Ukraine. But Zelensky hasn’t been invited.
“We cannot accept that territorial issues between Russia and America are discussed or even decided over the heads of Europeans, over the heads of Ukrainians,” Merz said in a TV interview Sunday. “I assume that the American government sees it the same way. That is why there is this close coordination.”
Merz, a center-right politician, has heavily courted Trump since taking office in May. He has tried to impress upon Trump that if the United States were to boldly intervene on behalf of Ukraine, it could drive Putin into a cease-fire and peace talks.
Trump’s recent frustration with Russia’s repeated bombing of Ukraine has made him more receptive to Merz’s pleas. But this week, he told reporters he wanted to see what Putin had on his mind, and if he could broker “a deal,” which could include swaps of land held by Ukraine and Russia.
But peace on bad terms for Putin might encourage him to send troops to another neighbor and threaten Europe.
“It’s really a concern that Putin might feel emboldened,” Anna Sauerbrey, foreign editor for Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper, told The New York Times. “Not to go for Berlin, of course, but to cause some unrest in other Baltic countries, other European countries.”
Europe’s leaders seemed optimistic that Trump will hear their pleas and take Europe’s needs into consideration.
The EU on Tuesday demanded that the Ukrainian people should determine their own future and that no peace deal with Russia could be decided without Ukraine at the table. Hungary disavowed itself from the calls.
Leaders of 26 of 27 European Union nations said in a statement that viable negotiations must be within the framework of a cease-fire or easing of hostilities and warned of the threat the war posed to European and international security.
There appears to be “more of an understanding from the Americans that you can’t just go for land swaps which would somehow give a prize to Russia,” said one European Union official, who was granted anonymity by the Washington Post. But, the official said, “it’s clear that there are sort of discrepancies, and as we’ve seen it in the U.S. system by now, you have one man who will decide.”
Trump told reporters Monday that “It’s not up to me to make a deal,” echoing what Europe is saying, that Ukraine must be part of the negotiations.
“I guess everyone’s afraid Putin will play Trump’s ego again like he has in the past,” said a second European official to the Washington Post. “Who knows, maybe he comes there with another noble-sounding offer or maybe they give [Trump] some state award.”
Russia says both sides affirm intention for Putin-Trump meet in Alaska on Friday, where Ukraine war set to be discussed.
The top diplomats from Russia and the United States have held a phone call ahead of a planned meeting this week between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In a post on Telegram on Tuesday, the ministry said Sergei Lavrov said the two sides had reaffirmed their intention to hold successful talks. The US Department of State did not immediately confirm the talks.
But speaking shortly after the announcement, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt revealed that Trump would meet with Putin in the city of Anchorage. She said the pair would discuss ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“On Friday morning, Trump will travel across the country to Anchorage, Alaska for a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Leavitt told reporters.
She added that Trump “is determined to try and end this war and stop the killing”.
On Monday, Trump told reporters he was “going to see” what Putin “has in mind” when it comes to a deal to end the fighting.
Trump also said he and Putin would discuss “land swapping”, indicating he may support an agreement that sees Russia maintain control of at least some of the Ukrainian territory it occupies.
Kyiv has repeatedly said that any deal that would see it cede occupied land – including Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – to Russia would be a non-starter.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw from the remaining 30 percent of the Donetsk region that Ukraine controls as part of a ceasefire deal, saying the position had been conveyed to him by a US official.
He reiterated Ukraine would not withdraw from the territories it controls, noting that such a move would go against the country’s constitution and would serve only as a springboard for a future Russian invasion.
Moscow has maintained that any deal must require Ukraine to relinquish some of the territories Russia has seized since 2014. He has also called for a pause to Western aid for Ukraine and an end to Kyiv’s efforts to join the NATO military alliance.
Friday’s planned meeting will be the first time Putin has been in the US since 2015, when he attended the UN General Assembly.
The pair met six times during Trump’s first presidency, including a 2018 summit in Helsinki, during which Trump sided with Putin – and undermined the US intelligence community – by saying Russia did not meddle in the 2016 election.
Aug. 9 (UPI) — President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to meet Friday in Alaska and might invite Russian President Volodymyr Zelensky to join them.
It will be the first in-person meeting between Trump and Putin since the G20 summit in Japan in 2019 during Trump’s first term.
Zelensky initially was not invited, a source told The Washington Post, but Trump is considering inviting him, NBC News and The Hill reported on Saturday.
Putin on Thursday said he opposed meeting with Zelensky, saying “for this to happen, certain conditions must be created. Unfortunately, we are still far from creating such conditions.”
Trump announced the meeting on Friday night on Truth Social.
“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 posted.
The presidents also considered meeting in the United Arab Emirates and Rome.
Because the United States does not recognize the International Criminal Court, it does not have to abide by a warrant issued in 2023 for Putin’s arrest on allegations he was involved in the abduction of children from Ukraine during the war. Had the meeting been held in Rome, there were concerns officials would attempt to arrest Putin.
On chances for a deal, Trump told reporters this week that he thinks “we have a shot at” achieving a deal and refused to call the meeting a last chance.
“I don’t like using the term ‘last chance,” he said.
Trump has floated the idea that a peace deal with Ukraine may require the European nation to give up territory — something Zelensky and many European leaders oppose.
“You’re looking at territory that’s been fought over for 3½ years with — you know, a lot of Russians have died, a lot of Ukrainians have died,” Trump said. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.”
Ukraine currently controls around 4 square miles of Russian land in the western Kursk region, while Russia has one-fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory — including the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Enerhodar, which is the largest generating station in Europe.
Ukraine had also seized around 500 square miles in August 2024 but later retreated.
Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and four other regions in eastern Ukraine — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — and Putin has proposed Crimea be formally recognized as Russian sovereign territory.
“We’re looking at that, but we’re actually looking to get some back and some swapping. It’s complicated. It’s actually nothing easy, [and] it’s very complicated. But we’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched. There will be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,” Trump told reporters when asked if Ukraine will need to give up territory in a peace deal.
Trump also said that the self-imposed deadline for Putin to agree to a cease-fire or face “secondary sanctions” against nations that buy oil from Russia would “be up to him. We’re going to see what he has to say — it’s up to him.”
On Wednesday, he signed an executive order that doubled the tariff against India to 50% over the Asian nation’s imports of Russian oil. The order followed a 50-day ultimatum Trump gave to Putin to reach a truce with Ukraine, and later moved the deadline up to 10 days.
After a three-hour meeting with Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Wednesday, Putin said told Witkoff that he would agree to a cease-fire if Ukraine withdrew from the Donbas region.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Putin for the first time provided “concrete examples of the kinds of things that Russia would ask for in order to end the war.”
On Saturday, Zelensky reiterated his opposition to giving up land.
“Ukrainians are defending their own. Even those who are with Russia know that it is doing evil. Of course, we will not give Russia awards for what it has done. The Ukrainian people deserve peace. But all partners must understand what a worthy peace is. This war must be ended, and Russia must end it. Russia started it and is dragging it out, not listening to any deadlines, and this is the problem, not something else,” he said in Ukrainian in a video posted on Instagram.
He also “Ukraine is ready for real decisions that can bring peace. Any decisions that are against us, any decisions that are without Ukraine, are at the same time decisions against peace. They will not achieve anything,” Zelensky added in a post on X.
Zelensky also said he spoke with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Saturday and he was “grateful for his support.”
He said they both see the danger of “Russia’s plan to reduce everything to a discussion of the impossible.”
The meeting between Trump and Putin was confirmed by Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin official.
“The economic interests of our countries intersect in Alaska and the Arctic, and there are prospects for implementing large-scale, mutually beneficial projects,” he told reporters, according to state-run TASS. “But, of course, the presidents themselves will undoubtedly focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.”
Saturday, U.S. Vice President JD Vance will attend a summit of national security advisers in Britain that includes Ukraine and other European allies.
United States President Donald Trump has confirmed he will meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on August 15 in Alaska to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
But, Trump added, any peace deal would involve “some swapping” of territory, a controversial prospect.
“We are going to have a meeting with Russia. We’ll start off with Russia,” he said on Friday, as he hosted leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House.
Trump offered few details on what, if anything, had changed in his months-long effort to bring about a deal to end Russia’s invasion.
Still, he suggested any breakthrough would require the exchange of territory.
“It’s very complicated. But we’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched. There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we’ll be talking about that either later or tomorrow,” he said.
Ukraine and its European allies have long opposed any agreement that involves ceding occupied territory – including Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – to Russia.
But Putin has repeatedly said that any deal must require Ukraine to relinquish some of the territories Russia has seized since 2014.
He has also called for a pause to Western aid for Ukraine and an end to Kyiv’s efforts to join the NATO military alliance.
Still, the prospect of Trump meeting Putin has raised logistical questions in recent days, particularly since the Russian leader faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Prosecutors have sought his arrest for alleged war crimes perpetrated in Ukraine, and Putin’s travel through any ICC member countries could result in his detention.
The US, however, is not an ICC member and does not recognise the court’s authority.
While the Kremlin had previously floated the possibility of meeting in the United Arab Emirates, another non-member, Trump announced on Friday in a Truth Social post that he would welcome Putin to the US northernmost state, Alaska.
The state’s mainland sits approximately 88 kilometres – or 55 miles – away from Russia across the Bering Strait, and some smaller islands are even closer.
Friday’s announcement came on the same day as a deadline that Trump had imposed on Russia to reach a ceasefire passed without any new agreement.
In recent weeks, Trump had grown increasingly frustrated with Russia over the country’s continued attacks on Ukraine and its apparent unwillingness to come to an accord.
The August 15 meeting is slated to be the first tete-a-tete between the two leaders since 2019, during Trump’s first term.
Trump had broken with decades of diplomatic precedent by seeming to embrace Putin during much of his time in the White House.
Earlier this year, for instance, Trump appeared to reject Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in favour of Putin. He also blamed Ukraine’s ambitions of joining NATO for provoking Russia’s full-scale invasion of its territory in February 2022.
“Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump yelled at one point during a confrontational meeting with Zelenskyy broadcast from the White House in February.
But Trump has positioned himself as a self-described “peacemaker”, and his inability to bring the Ukraine war to a close has become a source of resentment between him and Putin.
At the same time, he took an initially permissive approach to Putin, but has since expressed growing frustration with the Russian leader amid Russia’s continued attacks.
Last week, Trump denounced Russia’s renewed attacks on Kyiv. “I think it’s disgusting what they’re doing. I think it’s disgusting,” he said.
He also demanded that Russia pause its attacks or face new sanctions and secondary tariffs on key trading partners.
On Wednesday, Trump appeared to begin to make good on that threat, raising tariffs on Indian goods to 50 percent in response to its purchase of Russian oil.
Still, this week, Trump hailed “great progress” in the peace negotiations as his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, visited Putin in Moscow.
But as of Friday, the date of the new deadline, no new US actions or Russian capitulations had been announced.
Some analysts have argued that Putin is intentionally teasing out talks to extend the war.
It remains unclear if Trump’s mercurial approach has meaningfully changed the ceasefire equation since he took office.
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Alaska on Wednesday about 54 miles south of Sand Point. Image by U.S. Geological Survey
July 16 (UPI) — A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Alaska on Wednesday and a tsunami warning was canceled two hours later for the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island.
The quake struck at 12:37 p.m. local time at a depth of 12.5 miles about 54 miles south of Sand Point, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The earthquake was felt throughout the Alaska Peninsula and southern Alaska, the Alaska Earthquake Center said. Anchorage, the state’s capital, is about 557 miles from the quake center.
The Alaska Earthquake Center reported about 30 aftershocks in two hours after the earthquake. The largest one was magnitude 5.2.
Dave Snider, a tsunami warning coordinator with the National Tsunami Warning Center, told KTUU-TV because it happened in shallow water they were “not expecting a large event.”
The National Weather Service in Anchorage, Alaska, first issued a tsunami warning right after the quake, then it was downgraded and lifed at 2:43 p.m. Warnings were sounded in Sand Point, Cold Bay and Kodiak.
The Kodiak Emergency Operations Center reported a 6-inch wave that was confirmed by the U.S. Coast Guard.
State Seismologist Michael West told KTUU-TV that activity is common after an earthquake and aftershocks can be expected in the “coming days, weeks and even months.”
The area is part of Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
“This is the fifth earthquake exceeding magnitude 7.0 in a very small stretch of the Aleutians, just a couple hundred kilometers, since 2020,” West said. “Clearly, something is going on.”
July 4 (UPI) — Rescuers in Alaska recovered the body of a 62-year-old woman who went on a hike in the mountains near Juneau after leaving the Norwegian Bliss cruise ship.
Marites Buenafe, a medical doctor from Kentucky, was a passenger on the Norwegian Bliss, which was a seven-day round-trip from Seattle. Her body was found on Thursday, the Alaska Department of Public Safety State Troopers announced.
Around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, she texted family members that she was going up going up Mount Roberts Tramway in Juneau and would hike from Gold Ridge to Gastineau Peak, the troopers reported.
Security footage showed Buenafe at the top of the tramway.
The 4-mile hike is challenging and usually takes three hours, hiking website AllTrails states.
The ship was scheduled to depart around 1:30 p.m. At around 3:15, Buenafe was reported missing.
Juneau Mountain Rescue searched on the ground and used thermal drones to scan the area, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said.
Also, an Alaska Wildlife Troopers helicopter and a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter conducted aerial searches, the department said.
The search continued Wednesday with more than a dozen professional volunteers, as well as Juneau police officers, Alaska state troopers and Juneau Mountain Rescue.
Also utilized were drones and K-9s. Helicopter use was limited because of windy conditions.
The search resumed Thursday. At 11:56 a.m., Alaska Army National Guard helicopter crew located Buenafe’s body some approximately 1,700 feet below the ridge line of Gold Ridge, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said.
Crews then recovered her body, which was taken to the state medical examiner’s office for autopsy.
Buenafe was listed on the University of Kentucky Healthcare system’s website as a doctor.
DPS spokesperson Austin McDaniel told KYES-TV it is important to inform somebody of hiking plans.
“If you don’t return on time, they can alert first responders, alert search and rescue teams, the troopers, so we can immediately begin formulating a plan and activating resources to help get you out of the field,” McDaniel said.
WASHINGTON — A plan to sell more than 3,200 square miles of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans’ big tax and spending cut bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber’s rules.
Lee, a Utah Republican, has proposed selling millions of acres of public lands in the West to states or other entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local control after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year.
The proposal received a mixed reception Monday from the governors of Western states. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, called it problematic in her state because of the close relationship residents have with public lands.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, voiced qualified support.
“On a piece-by-piece basis where states have the opportunity to craft policies that make sense … we can actually allow for some responsible growth in areas with communities that are landlocked at this point,” he said at a news conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the Western Governors’ Association was meeting.
Lee, in a post on X Monday night, said he would keep trying.
“Housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up. We need to change that,’’ he wrote, adding that a revised plan would remove all U.S. Forest Service land from possible sale. Sales of sites controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would be significantly reduced, Lee said, so that only land within 5 miles of population centers could be sold.
Environmental advocates celebrated the ruling late Monday by Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, but cautioned that Lee’s proposal was far from dead.
“This is a victory for the American public, who were loud and clear: Public lands belong in public hands, for current and future generations alike,’’ said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society. “Our public lands are not for sale.”
Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, called the procedural ruling in the Senate “an important victory in the fight to protect America’s public lands from short-sighted proposals that would have undermined decades of bipartisan work to protect, steward and expand access to the places we all share.”
“But make no mistake: this threat is far from over,” Hauser added. “Efforts to dismantle our public lands continue, and we must remain vigilant as proposals now under consideration,” including plans to roll back the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act and cut funding for land and water conservation, make their way through Congress, she said.
MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, also ruled out a host of other Republican-led provisions Monday night, including construction of a mining road in Alaska and changes to speed permitting of oil and gas leases on federal lands.
While the parliamentarian’s rulings are advisory, they are rarely, if ever, ignored. Lawmakers are using a budget reconciliation process to bypass the Senate filibuster to pass President Trump’s tax-cut package by a self-imposed July Fourth deadline.
Lee’s plan revealed sharp disagreement among Republicans who support wholesale transfers of federal property to spur development and generate revenue, and other lawmakers who are staunchly opposed.
Land in 11 Western states from Alaska to New Mexico would be eligible for sale. Montana was carved out of the proposal after lawmakers there objected. In states such as Utah and Nevada, the government controls the vast majority of lands, protecting them from potential exploitation but hindering growth.
“Washington has proven time and again it can’t manage this land. This bill puts it in better hands,” Lee said in announcing the plan.
Housing advocates have cautioned that federal land is not universally suitable for affordable housing. Some of the parcels up for sale in Utah and Nevada under a House proposal were far from developed areas.
New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the ranking Democrat on the energy committee, said Lee’s plan would exclude Americans from places where they fish, hunt and camp.
“I don’t think it’s clear that we would even get substantial housing as a result of this,” Heinrich said earlier this month. “What I know would happen is people would lose access to places they know and care about and that drive our Western economies.”
Daly writes for the Associated Press.