Trump says he will meet Putin in Alaska on August 15 for Ukraine talks
The US president suggested that a peace agreement would involve some ‘swapping’ of land between Ukraine and Russia
US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 in Alaska, after signalling that he would support an agreement on Moscow’s war against Ukraine that would involve “some swapping of territories”.
“The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that more details would follow.
Addressing reporters at the White House a few hours ahead of the announcement, Trump said that “there’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both”.
Putin told US special envoy Steve Witkoff that he would agree to a complete ceasefire if Ukraine agreed to withdraw forces from all of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing European and Ukrainian officials.
That would hand Moscow control of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as the Crimea peninsula, which Russian forces seized in 2014 and have since considered to be sovereign Russian territory.
Russia now occupies most of the two regions with which it shares a border, with Ukraine still controlling swathes of territory, including Zaporizhia and some other key cities.