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US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has greeted his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska as they landed for a high-stakes summit on the future of Ukraine.
Trump landed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage shortly before 7.30pm Irish time, with the Russia president arriving half an hour later.
The two men shook hands after walking down separate red carpets after disembarking from their respective planes.
The warm greeting saw Trump briefly applaud Putin as he walked to greet him, with the Russian leader giving the Republican a thumbs up before they shook hands.
The two men briefly posed for photographs on a podium at the airbase with a large ‘Alaska 2025′ sign flanked by parked fighter jets. They ignored questions shouted from reporters before leaving together in the US Presidential state car, nicknamed ‘The Beast’.
It had been expected that the two men would meet one-to-one. However, the White House has confirmed that Trump will be joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff for the meeting, before a larger meeting over lunch that will include other officials.
Putin will be joined by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.
BREAKING: Putin and Trump have emerged from their planes after landing at Elmendorf-Richardson military base.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 15, 2025
Both walked down their respective red carpets and greeted each other face-to-face for the first time in more than six years.
Ukraine War latest: https://t.co/aPpDgPmG6g… pic.twitter.com/mDBPfNxCWU
The meeting marks Putin’s first visit to a Western country since launching the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Earlier today, Trump insisted he will not be intimidated by Putin at the talks, telling reporters: “I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me.”
He also said he would know “within minutes” whether the meeting would be a success.
“If it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly. If it’s good, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.”
Ahead of his flight to Alaska, Trump also shared a short post on his social media platform Truth Social, simply saying: “HIGH STAKES!”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was not invited to the talks, urged Trump to push Russia to halt its invasion.
“It is time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America,” he wrote on social media today.
Trump said no agreement would be finalised without Zelenskyy’s involvement and floated a three-way summit “immediately afterwards” in Alaska.
Trump also spoke on the phone today with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, the country’s state media reported.
The US President had boasted that he could end the war within 24 hours of returning to the White House in January.
But his calls to Putin and intense pressure on Zelenskyy to accept concessions have failed to move the Russian leader, and Trump has warned of “very severe consequences” if Putin keeps snubbing his overtures.
Zelenskyy met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London to discuss the summit. Starmer vowed solidarity, a day after Zelenskyy received support from a number of European leaders at a conference in Berlin.
Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Putin to seize the “opportunity” of a ceasefire.
“The goal must be a summit also attended by President Zelenskyy” where “a ceasefire must be agreed”, he said in a statement, adding that Trump “can now take a major step toward peace”.
Russia has made major gains on the ground ahead of the summit.
Yesterday, Ukraine issued a mandatory evacuation of families with children from the eastern town of Druzhkivka and four nearby villages near an area where Russia made a swift breakthrough.
Additional reporting from Andrew Walsh
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