Trump
says he will meet Putin in Alaska next Friday to discuss Ukraine war
US
president said end to war will involve ‘some swapping of territories’ before
announcing meeting
Andrew
Roth in Washington
Sat 9 Aug
2025 00.55 BST
Donald
Trump has said he will meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine
next week and said an end to the three-and-a-half-year war would have to
involve “some swapping of territories”.
Trump
said he planned to meet the Russian president next Friday in Alaska. He
announced the location in a brief post on his Truth Social site.
Russian
state media agency Tass confirmed the date and location of the meeting, citing
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov.
Earlier
in the day, Trump told reporters in the White House the meeting “would have
been sooner, but I guess there’s security arrangements that unfortunately
people have to make”.
The US
president also said “there’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment
of both” Ukraine and Russia and that the issue would be discussed soon but he
gave no further details.
Bloomberg
reported on Friday that the deal could cement some of Putin’s territorial gains
in Ukraine, in effect freezing the battle lines in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia
regions. Putin has claimed four Ukrainian regions in their entirety, although
much of their territory remains under Ukrainian control.
US and
Russian officials were working on a deal under which Russia would halt its
offensive in exchange for the territorial concessions – making it a politically
fraught proposal in Ukraine, Bloomberg said.
Trump’s
comments came after Poland’s prime minister said a “freeze” in the conflict
could be close, after speaking with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy,
who has communicated with Trump and European leaders in recent days.
“There
are certain signals, and we also have an intuition, that perhaps a freeze in
the conflict – I don’t want to say the end, but a freeze in the conflict – is
closer than it is further away,” Donald Tusk said during a news conference.
“There are hopes for this.”
Tusk said
Zelenskyy was “very cautious but optimistic” about the ceasefire, Reuters
reported. Ukraine was keen that Poland and other European countries play a role
in planning for a ceasefire and an eventual peace settlement, Tusk said.
Trump has
previously expressed his readiness to meet Putin one on one without
preconditions, including direct negotiations between Putin and Zelenskyy,
stoking fears that Ukraine may be left out of negotiations for the framework of
a potential ceasefire.
If the
summit happens, it would be the first US-Russia summit since 2021, when former
president Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva.
Zelenskyy
has responded by speaking with European leaders including the German
chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who are
key conduits to Trump.
The US
envoy Steve Witkoff had proposed a three-way meeting with Trump, Putin and
Zelenskyy but the Kremlin had ignored that suggestion, said the Putin aide Yuri
Ushakov, and was “focusing on preparations for a bilateral meeting with Trump
in the first place”.
Putin has
said he is not ready to meet Zelenskyy, even as the Kremlin claimed
preparations were under way for a bilateral summit with Trump next week.
“I have
nothing against it in general, it is possible, but certain conditions must be
created for this,” Putin said of a meeting with Zelenskyy. “But unfortunately,
we are still far from creating such conditions.”
Last
month, Trump issued an ultimatum for Putin to agree to a ceasefire or face
secondary sanctions with the deadline set for this Friday. That deadline
appeared in place despite plans for the summit, although the White House has
not said what secondary measures it could enforce.
Trump did
target India with a 25% tariff hike for purchasing Russian oil this week,
singling out one of Moscow’s economic enablers in a move that New Delhi
complained was unfair and selective.
Trump had
grown frustrated with Putin in public in recent months as the war dragged
through its third year and Putin continued to launch nightly missile and drone
strikes on Ukrainian cities despite Trump’s insistence that he could strike a
deal within 24 hours of becoming president.
“Putin …
talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening,” Trump said last month.
“So there’s a little bit of a problem there.”
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