President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet next week in the United States as Trump seeks a peace agreement that may necessitate significant territorial concessions from Ukraine.
The two leaders are set to meet on Friday in Alaska, as confirmed by Trump and a Putin aide, to negotiate a truce and conclude the war in Ukraine that Russia initiated 3½ years ago by invading the country. Trump did not specify whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be present. However, a source familiar with the negotiations, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive political matters, indicated that Zelensky had not yet received an invitation.
Earlier in the day, Trump informed reporters that the conditions of a peace settlement might compel Ukraine to relinquish territory to Russia, a concession that would be hard for the nation and its European allies to agree to.
“You’re looking at territory that’s been contested for 3½ years with — you know, many Russians have died, and many Ukrainians have died,” Trump stated. “There’ll be some exchanges of territories to the advantage of both.”
Zelensky seemed to oppose such notions in a statement shared on social media early Saturday, asserting that Ukrainians would “not gift their land to the occupier.” He emphasized that peace agreements made without Ukraine would be “stillborn” and “unworkable.”
Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin official, confirmed that a summit is indeed scheduled to occur in Alaska. It “seems quite logical that our delegation should simply fly across the Bering Strait,” he declared in a statement reported by Tass, the Russian state-run news agency. Ushakov also mentioned that a possible second summit could take place on Russian soil. The invitation for such a gathering had been communicated to Trump, he noted, according to Tass.
The momentum towards a Trump-Putin summit has quickly gained pace since Wednesday, when Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff had a three-hour meeting with Putin in Moscow. Witkoff departed the discussion with a proposal from Putin, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated “for the first time” provided “tangible examples of the types of things Russia would demand to conclude the war.”
What Trump intended by territorial exchanges remains ambiguous. Ukraine currently controls only about four square miles of Russian territory in the western Kursk region. Meanwhile, Russia occupies roughly a fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign land. In August 2024, Ukraine captured about 500 square miles from Russia, but following a year-long withdrawal, most of that negotiating leverage has dissipated, and discussions of territorial swaps have lessened.
Russia has consistently maintained that it seeks any agreement to acknowledge its control over Crimea, which it unlawfully annexed in 2014, as well as four additional regions in eastern Ukraine: Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. While Russian forces fully control Luhansk, they have not succeeded in capturing all of Donetsk, where significant cities remain under Ukrainian control.
In 2022, Ukrainian forces expelled Russian troops from the city of Kherson, though parts of the region are still under Russian control. Moscow also occupies sections of the Zaporizhzhia region, but has yet to reach the regional capital, which is home to many Ukrainians who fled from nearby frontline areas. Ukraine has clearly stated that any agreement that involves conceding unoccupied territory to Russia would be unacceptable.
Zelensky is constrained by constitutional limitations in Ukraine regarding any territorial concessions, as Trump also pointed out.
“He's not authorized to do certain things,” Trump remarked, referring to Zelensky. “I told him, ‘You need to act quickly because we are very close to reaching an agreement.’ And he’s working on it.”
Various locations worldwide have been considered for the Trump-Putin meeting, with Putin suggesting the United Arab Emirates. Some potential sites, like Rome, could have presented complications due to the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 over allegations related to the abduction of children from Ukraine during the conflict. Since the U.S. is not a participant in the court, a meeting in Alaska circumvents that issue.
The more critical challenge, however, will be whether the U.S. can find a means to reconcile Putin's demands with what Ukraine and its European allies are willing to accept.
Russia has proposed to Witkoff that Kyiv cede the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, which includes Luhansk and Donetsk, in return for a ceasefire, according to a source familiar with the discussions, who requested anonymity to speak about sensitive negotiations.
The individual stated that it was unclear whether Russia was prepared to relinquish territory in the disputed areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The territorial expansion by Russia in these regions has enabled it to secure its valuable land corridor to Crimea, which is a crucial route for transporting military and economic supplies to the strategically important peninsula.
Additionally, Russia has command over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant located in Enerhodar, which is the largest nuclear generating facility in Europe. Since Russia captured the plant in 2022, it has remained inactive, potentially leading to catastrophic risks. The matter of control over this facility has been repeatedly addressed in negotiations.
According to the Russian proposal, Moscow's annexation of Crimea would be officially acknowledged as part of Russian territory.
It appears improbable that Russia has altered its stance regarding its overarching war objectives, which include the disarmament of Ukraine, the ousting of what it perceives as Zelensky's "anti-Russian" administration, and the assurance of Ukraine's neutrality, as noted by Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
Recently, during a meticulously orchestrated visit to a monastery on Valaam island in northeastern Russia, the Russian leader claimed that his conditions for concluding the war had remained unchanged. He stated that by capturing land in Ukraine, Russia was simply reclaiming its own territory, dismissed the legitimacy of Ukraine's government, and insisted that Russia's rising casualty figures in the conflict were not futile.
“Land is not of great significance,” Stanovaya commented. “Given that Moscow seems to be indicating that the Witkoff proposal could be acceptable, it suggests that the U.S. is showing a willingness to negotiate” the issues that Russia characterizes as the "root causes of the conflict."
In April, both Europe and Ukraine had rejected a Witkoff proposal that called for a complete lifting of U.S. economic sanctions on Russia, Ukraine's neutrality, and recognition of the territories already seized by Russia, in exchange for freezing the conflict at the current frontlines. At that time, these terms were deemed inadequate in providing security guarantees for Ukraine and would permit Russia to return to seize more land in the future, according to both Ukrainians and Europeans.
Stanovaya mentioned that the Kremlin believes Zelensky is now in a considerably weaker military and political position than he was in the spring due to Russia's advances on the battlefield.
European leaders have been troubled by the possibility that a summit could result in Trump and Putin collaborating to dictate terms regarding Ukraine.
“Despite all the bravado, Trump has yet to exert any pressure on Putin — at this point, nothing at all,” a senior European official remarked following discussions of the summit.
Analysts on Russia believe that Putin is convinced he is winning the conflict and can accomplish his aim of dominating Ukraine, disarming it and undermining its ability to defend itself, as well as preventing its NATO membership.
Ukrainian officials had anticipated that the U.S. would demand that Putin consent to a three-way meeting that includes Zelensky.
On Thursday, a Ukrainian official indicated that initial discussions among U.S., European, and Ukrainian officials considered holding two bilateral meetings — one between Trump and Putin, and another between Trump and Zelensky — before progressing to a meeting involving all three.
However, Putin has been resistant to any suggestions of a direct meeting with Zelensky, which would suggest acknowledging the Ukrainian leader as a peer.
On Thursday, dismissing the prospect of a meeting with Zelensky, Putin stated, “For this to occur, certain conditions need to be established. Regrettably, we are still far from achieving such conditions.”
Ushakov mentioned on Thursday that Witkoff had introduced the notion of a three-way summit during his meeting with Putin on Wednesday, but “the Russian side completely ignored this option.”
“We propose that we primarily concentrate on arranging a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we believe it is crucial that this meeting be both successful and constructive,” Ushakov added.
Edwards and Hudson contributed from Washington, O’Grady from Kyiv, and Belton from London. Andrew Jeong assisted with this report.
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