US President Donald Trump, in his second term as head of state of the most powerful country in the world, is hours away from either making strides his predecessors could never achieve or devolve an already deadly war that, to-date, has claimed more than 60,000 lives.
Donald Trump in Alaska for talks with Vladimir Putin
Trump boarded the Air Force One on Friday morning on a historic trip to meet with Russian leader, Vladimir Putin.
The meeting, which has been in the works for months, takes place on somewhat neutral grounds, since Alaska, while a non-contiguous US state on the northwest extremity of North America, is situated across the pond from Russian territory, a comfortable setting for Putin, whose paranoia has kept him alive for many years, despite having, perhaps, the most powerful enemies with his name atop their hit lists.
However, Friday’s meeting will be less about Putin’s safety, according to the Trump administration.
Before boarding the Air Force One, Trump made it clear that his mandate was less about US economic interests, which, in his opinion, are not reliant on bilateral relations with Russia, but more about “[saving] a lot of lives.”
“I’m not doing this for my health. I don’t need it. I’d like to focus on our country.” the US president told reporters.
Sharing his thoughts on the crucial meeting, Vitaliy Shevchenko for BBC News, speculated that no major developments should come out of Anchorage, where Trump and Putin are set to hold talks.
“Worst case: Donald Trump offers Ukrainian territory to Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy disagrees and the fighting continues.” he wrote.
Zelenskyy, watching closely from a safe distance, released a statement ahead of the crunch talks, admitting that the Trump-Putin meeting was “indeed, high stakes.”
“The key thing is that this meeting should open up a real path toward a just peace and a substantive discussion between leaders in a trilateral format – Ukraine, the United States, and the Russian side. It is time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America. We are ready, as always, to work as productively as possible,” Zelenskyy noted.
Putin, on the other hand, made less of a spectacle on his way to Anchorage. According to reports, the Russian president, en route to Alaska, made a pitstop in Magadan, a remote but very strategic port city in Russia’s far east.
There, state media captured the Russian leader casually strolling through local production facilities and conducting oversight visits at factories producing quote-unquote Russian dietary supplements, which are central to his push for complete independence from the West.
No doubt, tensions will be palpable when Trump faces Putin. What should the watching world expect? At the very least, Shevchenko wrote, a ceasefire is the most realistic outcome.
“With no major agreements expected to be signed in Anchorage, the realistic best-case scenario we can expect today is a ceasefire followed by more talks, possibly involving Volodymyr Zelensky,” he speculated.