U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska next week, with the war in Ukraine and the possibility of a territorial swap deal on the agenda. The Kremlin later confirmed the summit, calling the choice of location “quite logical.”

Trump said the meeting, set for Friday, August 15, would aim to explore “long-term peaceful settlement” options to end the nearly three-year conflict. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,” Trump told reporters at the White House, without elaborating on details.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the two presidents would focus on pathways to end the crisis, but stopped short of suggesting a breakthrough was guaranteed. At talks in Istanbul last month, Russian negotiators demanded that Kyiv withdraw from certain territories and renounce Western military support as preconditions for halting their advance.

Russian forces continue to bombard eastern and southern Ukraine, displacing millions and devastating infrastructure. Putin has so far refused calls from the U.S., Europe, and Kyiv for a ceasefire and ruled out meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at this stage.

Ushakov revealed that Trump has been invited to visit Russia for a future round of talks, expressing hope that the next meeting “will be held on Russian territory.” The Alaska summit will mark the first meeting between a sitting U.S. and Russian president since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in 2021. Trump and Putin last sat down in 2019 at the G20 summit in Japan.

Zelensky reiterated Thursday that Ukraine must be directly involved in any peace negotiations. “It is only fair that Ukraine should be a participant in the negotiations,” he said in his nightly address. (ILKHA)