The president of the United States, Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, will hold a face to face in Alaska next Friday, in an attempt to put End to war in Ukraine triggered after the Russian invasion of February 2022.
Trump has dedicated his first months in office to try to negotiate peace, after boasting to be able to end the war in 24 hours, but after multiple rounds of conversations, telephone calls and diplomatic visits has not achieved any advance.
This is what we know so far about the meeting:
When and where
Trump announced in his social truth network that the meeting with Putin will be held August 15 In the state of Alaska, at the northern end of the United States, something that the Kremlin later confirmed.
The announcement occurred days after both parties indicated that the two leaders would celebrate a summit next week.
“They want to meet with me and I will do everything in my possession to stop the massacre,” Trump said Thursday, in reference to Putin and the Ukrainian President, Volodimir Zelenski.
On Friday, the US President said from the White House that “there will be some exchange of territories for the benefit of both”, without giving more details.
Why Alaska?
The meeting will be held in Alaska, a state that Russia He sold to the United States in 1867.
The western end of the state is close to the eastern end of Russia, crossing the Bering Strait.
“Alaska and the Arctic are also meeting points of the economic interests of our countries, and there are prospects for large and mutually beneficial projects,” said Telegram Yuri Ushakov, Kremlin advisor.
“But, of course, the presidents will undoubtedly focus on discussing the options to achieve a long -term peaceful solution to the Ukrainian crisis,” he added.
Ushakov also expressed his desire that next time both presidents meet in Russian territory.
“The invitation corresponding to the US President has already been sent,” he added.
The arrest warrant was expected by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Putin, which forces the arrest of the Russian leader if he visits member countries, would reduce the number of possible venues.
Putin had previously mentioned United Arab Emirates As a possible host of the conversations, while the media speculated with Türkiye, China and India as headquarters.
Will Zelenski be present?
For Zelenski, it is a “priority” to meet with Putin and maintains “legitimate that Ukraine Participate in negotiations “in a tripartite format.
But the Russian president refuses to see Zelenski. For Putin, an encounter with his Ukrainian couple would only make sense in the final phase of the peace negotiations.
As for Trump, his response was blunt. To the question of whether he believed that Putin should meet Zelenski first before meeting him, the US president replied “no.”
Zelenski spoke Thursday by phone with Trump, in a conversation in which several European leaders also participated.
The Ukrainian president asked that Europeans be included in the peace negotiations.
The background
The last meeting between Trump and Putin It happened in June 2019 in the middle of a G20 summit in Japan, during the first mandate of the Republican president.
In 2018 Putin held a meeting in Helsinki with Trump, who surprised when he appeared with the Russian leader after the discovery of American intelligence that Russia had interfered in the United States elections to support the Republican tycoon.
The last time Putin met with an American president, in the United States, was Barack Obama at the United Nations General Assembly in 2015.
Irreconcilable positions
Between Russia and Ukrainepositions remain diametrically opposite. The last round of direct negotiations held in Istanbul in July only resulted in a new exchange of prisoners and remains of dead soldiers.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to carry out deadly attacks against Ukraine and every day progresses in the front.
Moscow requires that Ukraine gives him four partially occupied regions (Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporiyia and Jersón), in addition to Crimea, annexed in 2014, and to renounce the deliveries of Western weapons and his ambition to join the NATO.
But for kyiv these demands are unacceptable. Ukraine wants Russia to withdraw its troops from its territory and demand Western security guarantees, including that weapons continue to be supplied and a European contingent is deployed, to which Russia opposes.
Ukraine also asks, together with his European allies, a high 30 -day fire, to which the Russians refuse.
