10m agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 6:57pmVladimir Putin touches down on US soil
The Russian president’s jet has just landed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska ahead of the his meeting with Donald Trump.
25m agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 6:43pm
In Kyiv, exhaustion is clear ahead of summit
There’s a real sense of fatigue here in Kyiv.
This war has been going on for more than three years now and it isn’t just the emotional drain of people losing friends and family, and people having to send their children out of the country because they’re scared about what might happen to them.
It’s the sleepless nights as well.
When cities are under attack, sirens ring out and even if they decide not to go to bomb shelters, people get woken up anyway.
Three-and-a-half years of living like that is really taking its toll.
This girl made her message to Alaska from outside the US embassy in Kyiv on Friday. (Reuters: Gleb Garanich)
There’s also a sense that these talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin could just be more of the same.
There’s been negotiations between delegations from Russia, the US and Ukraine before and people here have followed them closely.
But nothing material has come from them.
People are concerned this will just be more talk and no action.
There’s also concern about what’s happening on the battlefield, with Kremlin reports that there’s been major insurgencies in the east of Ukraine.
People are worried that Ukraine’s troops may be getting stretched. In other words: land has been taken by Russia and Ukraine can’t take it back.
People are hopeful that this summit will bring about some sort of a breakthrough, but they’re not optimistic.
Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, has come under nightly attacks. (Reuters: Gleb Garanich)
29m agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 6:39pm
The nationalist Russian view on Alaska
This sign in a coffee shop windown in downtown Anchorage tells you that Alaska’s Russian past is still on some people’s minds here.
(ABC News: Brad Ryan)
Russia sold Alaska to the US in 1867. In Russia, there’s still a nationalist school of thought that Russia should try take Alaska back.
It’s not considered a mainstream view there, but the “Alaska myth” is something Russian politicians like to troll America about on social media.
Here in Anchorage, some people have said they wonder if Vladimir Putin might raise it during his talks with Donald Trump, even if he’s not genuinely serious about it.
Patrick Walker has lived in Anchorage for 20 years. (ABC News: Brad Ryan)
Anchorage resident Patrick Walker summed up the way a lot of people here see all that:
“I know people are saying that – I think it’s more inflammatory, and more people trying to get a rise out of people. But the strategic value of Alaska and our assets and the energy we’re able to produce, and minerals for mining, it’s never going to happen. We would never let it go, especially from a military perspective.”
34m agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 6:34pmLeaders to meet alongside advisors: White House
There had been reports Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin would meet one-on-one, accompanied by only translators, but the White House pool is now reporting the meeting will now be a three-on-three.
On the US side, Donald Trump will be joined by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The White House says at the lunch following the meeting, Rubio, Witkoff, as well as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles will also be present.
43m agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 6:25pmDonald Trump lands in Anchorage, Alaska
Just moments ago, Air Force One touched down in Anchorage ahead of Donald Trump’s summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The Russian leader and delegation are expected to arrive shortly
49m agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 6:18pm
Who’s Russia sending to Alaska?
It’s not just the country’s president Vladimir Putin making the trip. Here’s who else Russia is sending to the landmark talks on US soil.
Sergei Lavrov
He’s Russia’s veteran foreign minister, and is 75 years old. He’s been involved in previous peace talks and is often the country’s face on the global stage, mainly because he doesn’t have an ICC arrest warrant out against him, for war crimes (like Putin does).
He turned up in Anchorage wearing a USSR sweatshirt, which was about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Yuri Ushakov
He’s 78 and is a key aide of Putin’s, who’s currently serving as a foreign policy advisor.
He’s a career diplomat and was previously Russia’s ambassador to the US.
Andrei Belousov
This man in Russia’s defence minister, but only been in the post since last year, after the surprise sacking of the long-serving Sergei Shoigu, who’d had the job for 12 years.
Belousov, 66, earlier this year said: “In 2025, Moscow plans to achieve victory in the war.”
Kirill Dmitriev
This 50-year-old is a bit of a wildcard in the mix. He was educated in the US, and is now the chief of Russia’s soverign wealth fund.
Exactly why he’s going to Alaska is a bit of a mystery. But there’s been reports of potential cooperation between the US and Russia on minerals deals.
His wife is also said to be friends with Putin’s daughters.
Anton Siluanov
He’s been Russia’s finance minister since 2011, and has had his work cut out for him, trying to ensure the country’s economy can keep working despite masses of Western sanctions.
These have really hurt Russia. Could the fact this 60-year-old is travelling mean they’re trying to get them lifted in Alaska? We’ll have to wait and see.
1h agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 6:08pm
Inside the Anchorage media centre
A peak beyond the curtain at the media centre (ABC News: John Lyons)
The media centre in Anchorage has been divided into what we’ll call “classes” with a curtain, as in a plane.
First class is hidden behind a curtain – bigger screens, more space – and the rest of us down the back.
Fox News, of course, has the prime spot in first class as Donald Trump’s favourite network.
On this historic day, he agreed not just to one exclusive interview with Fox, but two. Other American news organisations that the Trump White House does not like, such as Associated Press, are seated back in economy.
1h agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 5:56pmMedia arrive at military base ahead of meeting
I received approval along with a number of journalists to be at the military base where the summit will take place.
The security measures you have to go through to get to the base are understandably extremely tight. Each member of the press is screened individually and all of the gear we have brought was laid out to be searched. The Russian delegation was screened ahead of the bus I was on and it took a very long time.
Although we were only a 15-minute drive away from the base when we departed, it took nearly four hours to arrive due to the logistical challenges of bringing journalists from the US, Russia and around the world onto a military base with two major political figures.
The base outside Anchorage (Reuters: Jeenah Moon)
Inside the base, the Russian media outlets are on one side and on the other, you have American and other international news organisations like ABC News and the BBC.
In a separate tent, there are the larger US cable networks like CNN and Fox.
It’s quite chaotic here, everyone is scrambling to find a desk, set up camera gear and also find the wifi password ahead of the meeting between Putin and Trump.
1h agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 5:37pmHow will the day play out?
As far as major international summits go, this one has been arranged at rapid pace. The White House has been slowly releasing details of what we can expect to see today.
We expect Vladimir Putin to land about an hour after Donald Trump, and despite having a reputation for keeping US leaders waiting, the Kremlin has said the Russian leader is planning to be on time today.
The two leaders will then meet for the first time since 2019 and the world will wait to see what happens from there.
The Kremlin has said the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and their delegations could last up to seven hours.
1h agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 5:36pmTrump tells reporters he wants ceasefire ‘today’
In the days and even hours leading up to meeting Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump has been setting the stage, and the expectations, for what might be achieved.
On Air Force One on the flight to Alaska, Trump was asked what would make the meeting a success.
He told reporters: “I can’t tell you that. I don’t know. There’s nothing set in stone. I want certain things. I want a ceasefire.”
“I want to see a ceasefire rapidly… I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today,” he said.
The US President added Europe and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would also be involved. “I want the killing to stop.”
Donald Trump boards Air Force One en route to Alaska (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
In the days leading up to the summit, Trump said he believed he had “25 per cent chance” of the meeting being a failure, but he didn’t elaborate on what that would be specifically.
He also reportedly told Fox News that if the meeting didn’t go well: “I would walk”.
As many commentators agree, the only way to attempt to negotiate with Vladimir Putin is from a place of strength.
These comments from Trump are notably stronger than the characterisation of the event by the White House earlier in the week, which called the summit a “listening exercise”.
1h agoFri 15 Aug 2025 at 5:33pm
Welcome to our coverage
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
There are high hopes this meeting will deliver some reprieve for Ukraine, as Russian forces makes further advances in the war launched by Vladimir Putin more than three years ago.
US President Donald Trump is hopeful, saying he believed there was just “a 25 per cent chance” these talks would fail.
In a few hours, we will find out.
The leaders are due to arrive in the Alaskan city of Anchorage shortly.
I’m Emily Clark, a reporter on the ABC News foreign desk and I’m coming to you from Washington DC. My colleague Brad Ryan will join us from Anchorage, along with several ABC News correspondents who you will see pop up throughout the day.
We will bring you all the developments as they happen.