President Donald Trump said he would meet President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia next Friday in Alaska, as he tries to secure a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump announced the meeting on Friday shortly after he suggested that a peace deal between the two countries could include “some swapping of territories”, signalling that the US may join Russia in trying to compel Ukraine to permanently cede some of its land.
“We’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched,” Trump said while hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for a peace summit at the White House. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we’ll be talking about that either later, or tomorrow.”
The meeting, the first in-person summit between an American and Russian President since President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met Putin in June 2021, reflects Trump’s confidence in his ability to persuade Putin in a face-to-face encounter, a goal that has eluded Trump and his predecessors. For Putin, the meeting itself is a victory after he spent the past several months largely isolated from the international community, with Nato leaders — other than Trump — refusing to communicate directly with him.
The meeting also presents a host of challenges. Ukrainian leaders have adamantly opposed relinquishing any of their land to Russia, and the country’s Constitution bars President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine from ceding any territory.
There would also be numerous political and military hurdles for Ukraine in turning over land to Russia, as well as questions including security guarantees for Ukraine and the future of frozen Russian assets. And many diplomats have suggested that Putin may be more interested in dragging out diplomacy to give him time to pummel Ukraine than in securing a peace deal.
White House officials declined to say exactly where in Alaska the two leaders would meet or why Trump decided to hold the meeting there, though it is the closest US state to Russia. In 2021, the Biden administration held talks with China in Anchorage, Alaska.
Trump also provided little additional detail about the meeting, what territory could be swapped or the broader contours of a peace deal, saying earlier on Friday that he did not want to overshadow the peace pledge between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But he told European leaders earlier this week that he planned to follow up his session with Putin with a meeting with Putin and Zelensky.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican advocate for US support of Ukraine, praised Trump’s announcement of the meeting. “To those who criticise President Trump for being willing to meet with Putin to end the bloodbath in Ukraine — remember Reagan met with Gorbachev to try to end the Cold War,” he posted on social media. “I’m confident President Trump will walk away — like Reagan — if Putin insists on a bad deal.”
Secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Thursday in an interview with EWTN, a Catholic media organisation, that the US has “some understanding” of what the Russians want “to stop this war from a diplomatic standpoint.”
“Now, I’m not claiming that what the Russians would need and what Ukraine would need are the same,” he said, without providing specifics. “There’s a difference, and there’s a gap there.”
He added: “Can we bridge the gap between the Ukrainian side and the Russian side on this close enough so the President can come in as part of any sort of meeting and maybe be the closer on this deal?”
(New York Times News Service)
