President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are slated to meet for a highly anticipated one-on-one in Alaska on Friday, Aug. 15 in a rare bilateral meeting on American soil at a time of heightened tensions.
Putin will be the first elected Russian leader to visit Alaska for the summit, land that the United States purchased from Moscow for $7.2 million in 1867, according to the National Archives.
If everything goes according to plan, this trip will mark Putin's eighth visit to the U.S. during his presidency, a role he has held for 20 years across two separate terms. Trump is hosting the meeting to try to push Moscow into a peace deal with Ukraine. The war, sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, nears the 3 1/2-year mark and stands as the largest conflict in Europe since World War II.
More: Trump-Putin summit spotlights Alaska's strategic importance, vulnerability
The leaders of the U.S. and Russia have met many times over the decades since the USSR dissolved, charting ups and downs in a complex relationship between the two nations, which has swung from periods of deep tension and distrust, to times of détente and cooperation.
