Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska next week, Trump says

President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are planning on meeting in Alaska, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Mr. Trump confirmed on Truth Social the meeting will take place in Alaska on Friday, August 15.

One senior White House official told CBS News the planning for next Friday’s summit is still fluid, and that it is still possible that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could end up being involved in some way. 

The White House said earlier this week that Mr. Trump is open to meeting with both Putin and Zelenskyy, but Mr. Trump suggested Friday he may start by just meeting with Putin, telling reporters he plans to “start off with Russia.” Mr. Trump also said he believes “we have a shot at” organizing a trilateral meeting with the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.

Russian businessman and Putin adviser Kirill Dmitriev acknowledged the planned meeting in a post on X that didn’t mention the Russia-Ukraine war. He suggested the U.S. and Russia should “partner on environment, infrastructure & energy in Arctic and beyond.”

The expected meeting comes as Mr. Trump presses Putin to strike a ceasefire deal with Ukraine. It would be the first face-to-face meeting between Putin and an American leader since former President Joe Biden met with his Russian counterpart in Switzerland in June 2021, eight months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Friday, August 8, is the Trump-imposed deadline for Putin to either cut a ceasefire deal or face hefty sanctions targeting the Russian economy, including possible secondary sanctions on countries that do business with Russia. Mr. Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Indian goods earlier this week, in part because India buys oil from Russia.

The status of those additional sanctions is unclear.

“This is another opportunity for the Arctic to serve as a venue that brings together world leaders to forge meaningful agreements,” Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska wrote in a social media post Friday night regarding the meeting. “While I remain deeply wary of Putin and his regime, I hope these discussions lead to genuine progress and help end the war on equitable terms.”

Mr. Trump has grown frustrated with Putin in recent weeks, as Russia has continued to pummel Ukrainian cities with drone and missile attacks. Mr. Trump has described some of his recent phone calls with the Russian president as disappointing.

The Trump administration’s tone has appeared to shift in recent days. Mr. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Putin in Moscow for hours on Wednesday, which the U.S. president described as “very productive.” The White House and the Kremlin later indicated they were open to a Putin-Trump summit.

The president told reporters Friday: “President Putin, I believe, wants to see peace, and Zelenskyy wants to see peace.”

But the actual terms of any possible peace deal remain unclear. Russia’s military occupies large swaths of eastern Ukraine, including both territories that it has captured since 2022 and ones that it annexed in a lower-intensity conflict that began in 2014. 

Russian leadership has indicated in the past that it wants Ukraine to withdraw its own forces from much of the country’s east — possibly including areas that Russia hasn’t even captured — and to end its longstanding push to join NATO. Zelenskyy has pushed back on those demands.

Mr. Trump said Friday he expects “some swapping of territories” between Russia and Ukraine.

The U.S. president has blamed both Zelenskyy and Putin at various points for slow progress on a ceasefire deal. Mr. Trump publicly argued with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office earlier this year, and he claimed Zelenskyy was prolonging the conflict by refusing to cede the Crimean peninsula to Russia. The Trump administration has also paused military assistance to Ukraine at least twice, before restoring the aid shipments.