US President Donald Trump posted “HIGH STAKES!!!” on his Truth Social platform, as he headed to Alaska for Ukraine talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The summit will mark Trump and Putin’s first one-to-one meeting in six years.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is excluded from the talks, and has warned that decisions made in his absence will be meaningless.
The choice of location is historically significant: the two presidents are meeting on American land that was once Russian.
Alaska belonged to Russia until 1867, when it was bought by the US. Then, in 1959, It became an American state.
Russian presidential assistant Yuri Ushakov said it was a “logical” place to meet, with only the Bering Strait separating the two countries.
The pair will be meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on the outskirts of Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, in the southern part of the state.
