The Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage, Alaska, where the summit will take place © Drew Angerer/AFP/Getty Images
Putin hails Trump’s ‘energetic and sincere’ efforts to end Ukraine war
Russian president’s comments come ahead of high-stakes Alaska summit that has been criticised for excluding Kyiv
Max Seddon in Frankfurt and David Sheppard in London
Published 14-08-2025 ©FT
Vladimir Putin has hailed Donald Trump’s “energetic and sincere efforts” to end the war in Ukraine ahead of a high-stakes summit that has drawn criticism for excluding Kyiv.
In his first comments since the US and Russia began arranging Friday’s summit in Alaska, the Russian president appeared to appeal to Trump’s desire to be feted for his peacekeeping efforts.
The remarks came even as Kyiv and its European allies fear the US could hand Putin large swaths of Ukrainian territory in exchange for an end to the hostilities.
Putin told his top officials on Thursday that the Trump administration was “making quite energetic and sincere efforts to end the conflict and the crisis through agreements that would represent the interest of all sides”.
He said a potential deal could “create long-term conditions for peace between our countries, in Europe, and in the world if we reach agreements in the next stages [of talks] on strategic offensive arms control”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Kyiv’s European allies have been engaged in a frantic week of diplomacy to convince Trump to consider their positions ahead of his first one-on-one meeting with Putin since 2019.
The US president went some way to reassuring them during a call on Wednesday that he would not strike a deal with Putin to carve up Ukraine and then present Zelenskyy with a fait accompli.
He added that he would like the Alaska meeting to be followed shortly after by a trilateral gathering with Putin and Zelenskyy.
Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin’s top foreign policy aide, said Putin and Trump would have a one-on-one meeting at 11.30am local time at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage, before holding talks with delegations including five officials on each side.
The summit would mainly focus on the war in Ukraine but also take in global security issues and an “exchange of views” on potential US-Russia economic co-operation, Ushakov told reporters.
“The talks will be businesslike and, naturally, we all have a businesslike approach foremost,” Ushakov said, according to state newswire Tass.
The talks would continue “depending on how the discussion goes” and conclude with a joint press conference, Ushakov added.
Trump had said he would increase sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine if Putin did not meet his deadline of last week to agree a ceasefire, but shifted his focus to the summit after special envoy Steve Witkoff met the Russian leader in the Kremlin.
Both sides heralded progress after the Kremlin talks without offering much detail.
Putin has shown no indication of dropping his insistence on resolving what he claims are the “root causes” of the conflict, which would involve rolling back Nato’s eastward expansion and largely ending Ukraine’s existence as an independent state.
Co-operation between the US and Russia on arms control has also all but collapsed over the invasion of Ukraine.
In 2023, Moscow suspended its participation in New Start, the last remaining major arms control treaty with the US. Talks have yet to resume on a new treaty before the current one, which governs strategic offensive arms, expires in February next year.
Moscow believed there was “enormous, untapped potential for trade and economic co-operation” between the countries, Ushakov said.
The Russian delegation included finance minister Anton Siluanov and Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy for economic co-operation, as well as foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, defence minister Andrei Belousov and Ushakov, he added.
Siluanov is in charge of the Kremlin’s response to sanctions, while Dmitriev, chief executive of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, has touted the prospect of what he claims would be lucrative joint ventures in energy and the Arctic.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has left the sanctions regime in place but largely refrained from adding new ones. US officials have said they view the prospect of lifting sanctions as a potential motivation for Russia to stop the war.
At times, the US has appeared to view the war in Ukraine as an obstacle to restoring bilateral ties with Russia.
Witkoff has spoken of “a possibility to reshape the Russian-US relationship through some very compelling commercial opportunities” if a deal on Ukraine can be done.
But after speaking to European leaders on Wednesday, Trump said there would be “very severe consequences” for Putin if he did not end the war.
Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official, said: “This is part of Putin’s strategy to discuss the Ukrainian issue separately from everything.”
“The mood is as follows: let’s get over Ukraine, on our terms, and let’s rule the fate of the world together and profitably,” she added.
On Thursday, Zelenskyy travelled to London to meet Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as European countries — which were not invited to the Alaska summit — have been rushing to present a united front in backing Ukraine’s interests in the negotiations.
Trump on Wednesday indicated to European leaders that he would support a security backstop for a “reassurance force” from the continent in postwar Ukraine — an idea promoted by the UK and France.
Three European officials familiar with the call said Trump offered US “security guarantees” to a postwar peacekeeping force, as long as it did not involve the Nato alliance.
