MOSCOW/ANCHORAGE, August 15. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin is heading to Alaska, the northernmost state of the United States, for talks with his American counterpart Donald Trump. This will be their first meeting since Trump's return to the White House in January this year.
It will also be the first ever visit to Alaska by a Russian leader, including the times of the Russian Empire and the USSR. Although Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov said that Russia and the United States are close neighbors, and the Russian delegation just needs to fly over the Bering Strait, in fact, there is a long way to go. Flight number one will cover about 7,000 km, cross 11 time zones and a conditional date line.
The Kremlin called the venue notable, in part, because near the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage, where the summit will be held, nine Soviet pilots, two military personnel and two civilians who died in 1942-1945 during the transfer of planes from the United States to the Soviet Union under lend-lease, were buried. According to Ushakov, the fact that the summit will be held next to such a historically important place, reminiscent of the fighting brotherhood of the peoples of the two countries, "is especially symbolic in the year of the 80th anniversary of the Victory over Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan."
