President Donald Trump has announced that he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska next Friday.
Trump announced the meeting in a post on Truth Social on August 8.
“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. Further details to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump wrote.
The announcement came on the deadline Trump had given for Putin to end the war, or face severe economic consequences.
CNN reports:
US officials, including Trump, have briefed European leaders and Ukrainian officials on a plan offered by Putin to halt the war in Ukraine in exchange for significant territorial concessions by Kyiv, according to Western officials briefed on the matter.
The plan, which Putin presented to Trump’s foreign envoy Steve Witkoff in a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday, would require Ukraine to cede the eastern Donbas region — the majority of which is currently occupied by Russia — as well as Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
The plan would freeze current battle lines, but other details of the proposal were still unclear.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday before announcing the meeting, Trump seemed optimistic that peace can be achieved in the region.
“The European leaders want to see peace,” Trump said. “President Putin, I believe, wants to see peace, and Zelensky wants to see peace.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the announcement with a video statement on Saturday morning, wearing a green sweatshirt, in which he rejected any peace deal that involves exchanging land.
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. These are stillborn decisions. They are unworkable decisions. And we… pic.twitter.com/JFg0rIeLzP
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 9, 2025
Zelenskyy said “Ukrainians will not give their land as a gift to the occupier,” and that “any decision made against or without Ukraine will bring nothing” and are “dead decisions” that “will never work.”
Despite that, Zelenskyy claimed he is “ready, together with President Trump, together with all partners, to work toward real, and most importantly, lasting peace.”
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