The presidents of Russia and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, will begin their long-awaited summit in Alaska on Friday at 10:30 p.m. Romanian time, a tete-a-tete at which only the two leaders and their translators will participate, Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Thursday.
The leaders will then hold a joint press conference. It is their first one to one meeting since their summit in Helsinki, Finland in July 2018.
Trump has shown growing frustration with Putin leading up to their Aug. 15 summit to discuss ending Russia’s years-long invasion of Ukraine
The US president promised to quickly broker a peace deal even before he took office in January. But Putin has not only resisted ceasefire proposals, but Russia escalated its attacks on Ukraine this year.
European leaders have called for security guarantees for Ukraine, but Putin still wants to ensure that Ukraine never joins NATO and that foreign peacekeepers don’t enter the territory, according to reports.
The meeting “is expected … to start tomorrow, August 15, around 11:30 a.m. local time (10:30 p.m. Bucharest and Moscow time) with a discussion between Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Donald Trump,” Ushkaov said, confirming interpreters would join the leaders.
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will discuss the “huge untapped potential” of economic relations between Russia and the US, as well as the prospects for ending the war in Ukraine, Putin’s adviser said.
summit will focus on the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis, but other topics will also be addressed.
“Of course, broader objectives for ensuring peace and security, as well as the most current and acute international and regional problems, will also be addressed,” he said. The leaders will also discuss bilateral economic cooperation.
“I would like to emphasize that this cooperation has enormous potential, which, unfortunately, has not been exploited so far,” said Putin’s adviser.
He also said that then the delegations from the two countries will meet, and at the end the presidents will hold a joint press conference.
Preparations for the meeting…. have entered the final phase, all the problems are being solved “intensely”, Ushakov said at a press conference.
“This meeting, as you all know, will take place in Alaska, in Anchorage, more precisely in one of the buildings of the combined military base Elmendorf-Richardson,” Putin’s adviser said.
The Russian delegation to Alaska will include Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Assistant to President Yuri Ushakov, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and the President’s Special Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries Kirill Dmitriev.
After the one-on-one discussion, Putin and Trump will continue their talks “over a working breakfast”. The Russian delegation will leave Alaska for Russia immediately after the summit.
Ushakov welcomed the venue for the talks, close to a memorial cemetery where nine Soviet pilots, two soldiers and two civilians are buried who died in World War II during a transfer of aircraft from the US to the USSR.
Volodymyr Zelensky speaks with Romania’s president ahead of Trump-Putin meeting
