President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s high stakes summit on Aug. 15 will take place at a U.S. military base in Anchorage, Alaska, a White House official confirmed to USA TODAY.
The face-to-face meeting, billed as a “listening exercise” by the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, will be held at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to discuss Russia’s three-year war on Ukraine.
“The goal of this meeting for the president is to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end this war,” Leavitt told reporters during a news briefing on Aug. 12.
The meeting, which came together quickly, will be the first time in four years that a U.S. president has met Putin since the war began.
Putin and former President Joe Biden met only once during his presidency – in Geneva in June 2021.
Military base located in Alaska’s largest city
Anchorage is Alaska’s largest city and home to 300,000 people. It’s capital city of Juneau, which is 570 miles from Anchorage – is currently under evacuation orders following glacial outburst flooding.
Meanwhile, Trump will be holding a virtual meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders on Aug. 13, two days before the summit with Putin.
Zelenskyy arrived in Berlin on Aug. 13 for a virtual conference hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that will include leaders of NATO members Finland, France, Great Britain, Italy, Poland and the European Union. Vice President JD Vance is also expected to call into the meeting.
Contributing: Reuters
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump-Putin meet to be held at military base in Alaska
