MOSCOW, August 11. /TASS/. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump plan to meet in Alaska; NATO spending threatens to increase divisions within the EU; and Armenia-Azerbaijan peace declaration may change regional security situation. These stories have topped Monday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Alaska – once Russian land, part of the US since 1867 - has been chosen as the place for a summit between President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Donald Trump of the United States, Vedomosti writes.
Alaska is an apt venue, given its symbolic historical meaning and practical advantages for both Russia and the US, Pavel Koshkin, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for US and Canadian Studies, said. He pointed out that back when the Russian Empire sold Alaska to the United States, talk of a Russia-US alliance swept Europe. "In addition, the Americans supplied planes to the Soviet Union via Alaska during World War II," Koshkin added. Alaska is also a logistically convenient location as Russia won’t have to ask European countries to open their airspace to get there.
The leaders of Russia and the US will no doubt delve into the root causes of the Ukraine conflict at the meeting, Koshkin points out. Trump seeks to close the issue and move on, Maxim Suchkov, director of the European Studies Institute at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, believes. In his view, the fact that the summit will be taking place in Alaska means the parties will discuss the Arctic, where both confrontation and cooperation between Russia and the US is possible. The expert added that both Moscow and Washington were interested in addressing other topics, too, including the Middle East, Syria, Iran and space exploration.
