Several hundred people gathered for a pro-Ukraine rally in Anchorage, Alaska, where U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are set to meet Friday.
The high-stakes summit — the first in-person meeting between an American president and Putin since the latter launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, is meant to lay the ground for a ceasefire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not invited to the summit, scheduled to kick off around 11 a.m. local time at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
Protesters started to gather early on Friday morning ahead of Putin’s arrival in Anchorage, chanting pro-Kyiv slogans and demanded that Russia return the 20,000 Ukrainian children it has kidnapped from the war zone. The protesters also took umbrage at Trump inviting Putin to a meeting on American soil in Alaska, which used to be Russian territory until it was sold to the United States in 1867.
“Ukraine and Alaska — Russian never again,” Ostap Yarysh, media advisor of Razom for Ukraine foundation, said in a post on X, along with footage of the protest.
The local organizers of the rally said “Alaska opposes tyranny” in a post on social media, calling on supporters to “come together in Anchorage, Alaska, to protest against an international war criminal hanging out here.”
“The decision to host Putin, a war criminal, on Alaskan soil is a betrayal of our history and the moral clarity demanded by the suffering of Ukraine and other occupied peoples,” the Native Movement NGO said in a statement, calling for Trump not to make a deal with Putin.
Trump said he planned to organize a trilateral meeting with the Ukrainian president and Putin soon after the Alaska meeting. The U.S. president said there were “three ideas” for locations — and “by far the easiest” would be staying in Alaska.
Ukraine and its European allies have expressed some cautious optimism about the summit, after Trump hardened his criticism of Putin over his role in prolonging the war and floated the idea of U.S. security guarantees to facilitate a ceasefire, something he had previously rejected. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday confirmed that stance, saying in a press conference Thursday: “To achieve a peace, I think we all recognize that there’ll have to be some conversation about security guarantees.”
Though Trump initially floated the idea of Ukraine “swapping land for peace,” he later promised Ukrainian and European leaders that he would not discuss the issue with Putin and without Zelenskyy.
The White House has attempted to temper expectations of a successful peace deal ahead of the summit, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt referring to the meeting as a “listening exercise.”
Still, Trump has said he expects Putin to take the meeting seriously, threatening “very severe consequences” for Moscow if the Russian leader doesn’t agree to take steps to end the war. Leavitt said Trump prefers diplomacy over imposing new sanctions on Russia, though he has “all means ready.”
Russia does not expect any documents will be signed after the meeting in Alaska, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian media on Thursday.
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