Landing In Alaska: How The White House Is Preparing For The Meeting Between Trump And Putin

Part of the negotiations will be face-to-face.

Because of the peak tourist season, the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will be held at the US military base Elmendorf-Richardson. At the same time, Washington was looking for other options until the last, hoping to avoid the prospect of placing the Russian leader and his entourage at the US military base.

Trump himself does not put much hope on the meeting, he calls the upcoming summit "introductory" and says he seeks to understand Putin's intentions regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war. Details were revealed by CNN.

Trump will meet Putin at a U.S. military base in Alaska

According to the publication, U.S. officials spent the entire weekend searching for a location for Trump's meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday, August 15. The search proved fruitless: it is the peak tourist season in the state. In addition, there is too little time left to organize the summit and ensure the proper level of security.

So soon the organizers of the meeting came to the conclusion: the only city in the huge state to hold the summit is Anchorage. And only the U.S. military base Elmendorf-Richardson on the northern outskirts of the city is the only one left to meet its security requirements. Therefore, the choice was made, although the White House had hoped to avoid the prospect of hosting the Russian leader and his entourage at a US military base.

That the meeting would be held there, two Trump administration officials told CNN.

Preparations for the meeting are still underway. The Russian Foreign Ministry, in particular, said that contacts on "certain aspects of preparations" between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took place on Tuesday.

"Normally, a summit with a high-stakes and U.S. adversary would be preceded by extensive talks on agenda and outcomes. But Trump himself has said he is approaching the meeting as an "exploratory" session, with few prior expectations about how it will play out. The White House on Tuesday called it a "listening session," the publication wrote.

Rubio also issued a statement designed to lower the degree of expectation, and likely to pre-emptively justify the lack of results from the "historic meeting."

"The president feels, 'Look, I've got to look across the table at this guy. I need to see him eye-to-eye. I need to hear him eye to eye. I need to make an assessment by looking at him," Rubio explained in a recent interview why Trump needed to meet with Putin and why five phone conversations were not enough for him to understand the intentions of the aggressor head of state.

Alaska was chosen because of an active arrest warrant for Putin issued by the International Criminal Court back in 2023. The Russian dictator was afraid to meet in Europe, where he would be detained.

The Kremlin's proposal to hold the meeting in the United Arab Emirates did not suit the United States: the White House did not want another long trip by Trump to the Middle East, where he visited only in May.

In the end, the choice was narrowed down to two options: Hungary, where Viktor Orban, loyal to both Trump and Putin, runs the country, and U.S. territory.

And when the Russian dictator agreed to meet in the United States, and even in Alaska, which was once part of the Russian empire, U.S. officials were surprised.

And if Trump took the agreement as a "show of respect," his opinion is not shared by everyone in the United States.

"The only better place for Putin than Alaska would be a summit in Moscow. So I think the initial organization is a big win for Putin," said Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton.

What the talks between Trump and Putin

While preparations for the Alaska summit are raging, the reasons that were the catalyst for holding it remained unclear. Trump announced his desire to meet with the Russian dictator after special envoy Steve Whitkoff flew to Moscow for talks with Putin. What he heard from the Kremlin chief is shrouded in mystery.

European officials have spent much of the past week trying to unravel the mystery. But attempts to understand what parameters of the "peace agreement" Putin has proposed - in particular, and questioning Whitkoff himself - have brought little clarity.

The day before his meeting with Putin, on Wednesday, August 13, Trump is scheduled to take part in a virtual conversation with European leaders that Germany has organized. He will hear Europe's point of view before his summit with the Russian dictator. Trump also promises to inform both European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about its progress and results immediately after the conversation with Putin.

At the same time, CNN emphasizes, Zelensky will not participate in the summit in Alaska, and there is no talk of a trilateral meeting yet.

But the White House said that Trump and Putin will spend part of the meeting face-to-face, with only their interpreters present.

"It's not typical for leaders to meet alone with their counterparts, but Trump and Putin's relationship has been the subject of intense scrutiny. And during Trump's first term, even senior officials said they were sometimes left in the dark about what was being discussed when aides were not present. In Trump's two previous meetings with Putin, interpreters, but not high-level aides, were present on both occasions. After the meeting in Germany, Trump reportedly asked his interpreter to provide notes," CNN writes.

Putin made a series of calls before the meeting to his few allies, who had themselves met with Trump at one point. In particular, he spoke with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, who met with Trump three times during the incumbent US president's first term. All three meetings had no result: the DPRK never gave up its nuclear weapons.

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