U.S. State Department documents left behind in an Alaska hotel reveal details of the Aug. 15 summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, NPR reported on Aug. 15.
Eight pages of government documents were left in a public printer at a business center in an Alaska hotel, according to photos of the papers a hotel guest shared with NPR.
The documents disclose the exact locations and meeting times of the summit and phone numbers of U.S. government staff. They also reveal other sensitive details, such as a menu for a luncheon in honor of “His Excellency Vladimir Putin.”
One page of the documents notes that Trump planned to gift Putin with a desk statue of an American bald eagle.
Another section provides phonetic pronunciation guides for the members of the Russian delegation, including “Mr. President POO-tihn.”
The documents detail the planned seating chart for the Aug. 15 luncheon, though the event was apparently canceled.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly dismissed the suggestion that leaving the documents in a hotel printer represented a security lapse, referring to the papers as a “multi-page lunch menu.”
The documents further illustrate the royal welcome Putin received on American soil. The warm and friendly tenor of the meeting was apparent from the leaders’ first greetings on the red carpet in Alaska. Trump praised the encounter after the summit, calling the meeting “a 10” and hailing his “great relationship” with Putin.
In a briefing with top Kremlin officials on Aug. 16, Putin called the summit “very frank and substantive.”
Putin and Trump spoke in a closed-door meeting for nearly three hours, after which they announced in a joint press conference that no peace agreement had been reached. Trump then abandoned his demands for a ceasefire —a precondition for negotiations backed by Ukraine and Europe — and said he favors making a rapid peace deal with Moscow.
No ceasefire, possible land swaps, vague security guarantees: Everything we know following Trump’s meeting with Putin
Following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, U.S. President Donald Trump has dropped demands for a ceasefire in favor of a comprehensive peace deal that would include giving up unoccupied Ukrainian territories to Russia — but he promises that security guarantees will be part of the deal. The Americans rolled out the red carpet for Putin as he arrived in Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 15 for a bilateral summit on ending the war in Ukraine. The two leaders spoke for three hour
