Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump met in Anchorage, Alaska, for a rare face-to-face summit, marking Putin’s first visit to the United States in ten years. According to reporting from Russia’s TASS news agency, the two leaders spoke for nearly three hours before delivering cautious public statements, with both hinting at progress but withholding details.
Putin’s aircraft landed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson at 10:54 a.m. local time, with the official welcoming ceremony following shortly after. Before formal talks began, the leaders exchanged a few words during a photo opportunity, then continued their initial conversation inside Trump’s Cadillac limousine en route to the meeting venue.
Talks were held in a “three-on-three” format, with Putin joined by Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while Trump was accompanied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff. Journalists briefly witnessed the start of the closed-door session, which was described by TASS correspondents as tense, with reporters jostling for space and shouting questions before being ushered out.
The summit lasted roughly three hours. At a joint press appearance, both leaders highlighted Ukraine as the central topic. Putin said he and Trump had developed “very good business and trusting relations” and voiced hope that their understanding could accelerate a resolution to the conflict. He stressed the need to move away from confrontation, noting that Russian–U.S. relations had reached their “lowest point since the Cold War.”
Trump characterized the meeting as a success, telling reporters that the two sides made “tremendous progress.” While acknowledging that a few disagreements remain, he later rated the summit “a 10 out of 10” in an interview with Fox News.
The Russian leader suggested holding a follow-up summit in Moscow. Trump said he was open to the idea, though he admitted it would draw criticism in the United States.
American media reacted with restraint, emphasizing the lack of concrete agreements. The New York Times suggested Putin may have delayed new sanctions, while Bloomberg noted that neither leader provided clarity on areas of common ground, potentially heightening concern in Europe and Kyiv.
The Anchorage meeting was the first full-fledged summit between Putin and Trump since their 2018 talks in Helsinki. Their last in-person contact was a shorter discussion at the G20 summit in Osaka in 2019. Putin later met with President Joe Biden in Geneva in 2021, but the Anchorage summit marks his first return to U.S. soil since then.
