The US president announced last week that the summit would be held in Alaska, but the exact location has been unknown until now
The city of Anchorage, Alaska will host Friday’s summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, according to the White House. Trump earlier announced that the meeting would be held in the biggest US state, but the exact location remained unknown until now.
“Many sites” were discussed as potential hosting venues for the meeting, according to White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. Trump is “very honored” that a US state was eventually chosen as the meeting place and he “looks forward hosting President Putin on American soil,” she told journalists during a briefing in Washington.
The schedule for Friday is still being “ironed out,” Leavitt said. She added that the US is working closely with Russia on the issue. Earlier on Tuesday, Moscow revealed that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio by phone to discuss “some aspects” of the upcoming summit, but did not provide any details about their conversation.
The White House spokeswoman also did not rule out a possible visit by Trump to Russia at some point in the future. “Perhaps, there are plans in the future to travel Russia,” she said when asked about the president’s intentions.
Speaking about Trump’s expectations for the summit, Leavitt said that the goal of the meeting “is to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end” the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. According to the spokeswoman, Trump “is agreeing to this meeting at the request of President Putin” delivered through special envoy Steve Witkoff.
The meeting comes following three-hour talks between Putin and Witkoff in Moscow last week.
Trump also hopes to arrange a trilateral meeting involving both Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, according to Leavitt. Zelensky and assorted Western European leaders and EU officials issued a statement previously, maintaining that no decision on resolving the conflict should be made without Kiev’s input.
The Russian president has said he has “nothing in principle” against meeting with Zelensky, but maintained that “certain conditions must be created” for it to take place. Moscow has repeatedly accused the Ukrainian leader of being in denial and unnecessarily prolonging a conflict he cannot win.
The Kremlin has also cast doubt on Zelensky’s ability to sign binding treaties, since his presidential term expired last year but he has refused to hold new elections, citing martial law.
