President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet for a high-stakes, face-to-face meeting to discuss how to end the conflict in Ukraine.
Time and Place
The meeting will take place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, at 11:30 a.m. local time on Friday, Aug. 15.The two leaders plan to hold a joint press conference following their face-to-face talks.
Afterwards, a meeting with members of both delegations will be held, according to White House and Kremlin officials.
Trump and Putin will then hold a joint press conference following the talks.
Friday's summit marks Putin's first visit to the U.S. in a decade. His last visit took place in 2015 when he attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
It’s also Putin's first visit to a Western country since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The military installation, which has roots tracing back to the Cold War, is Alaska's largest military base. It was built in 1940 and originally served as an air defense site to combat threats from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
What's at Stake
Trump predicted it would be "a good meeting," but the more important meeting will be the second one involving Zelenskyy.
"I think President Putin will make peace, I think President Zelenskyy will make peace. We'll see if they can get along," Trump told reporters at the White House.
Trump previously acknowledged that the first meeting will determine how serious Putin is about making peace.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy and his allies have intensified their efforts this week to prevent any deal between the United States and Russia emerging from Friday's summit that leaves Ukraine vulnerable to future attack.
Zelenskyy said he firmly believes any meeting without him at the table will not produce any real results.
“Any decisions that are without Ukraine are at the same time decisions against peace,” Zelenskyy said. “They will not bring anything. These are dead decisions. They will never work.”
Putin had publicly acknowledged that the United States was making "quite energetic and sincere efforts" to stop the war and reach agreements with all parties.
Meanwhile, Trump has indicated that there will be "very serious consequences" if Putin doesn't agree to peace, but did not specify details on what those consequences would be.