Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have met several times before – but never on American soil.
On Friday, the Russian and American leaders will meet where their two countries brush shoulders: Alaska.
The last time the pair met was at a G20 summit in Osaka in 2019, during Mr Trump’s first term in office.
But it has been 10 years since Mr Putin last went to the US. Here, we look at what happened during that trip and what can be expected from the upcoming summit in Alaska.
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What happened the last time Putin was in the US?
Mr Putin travelled to New York in September 2015 to speak at the United Nations General Assembly and met with then president Barack Obama while he was there.
During a photo opportunity at the beginning of the session, the two men smiled at the camera, their hands gripped in a tight handshake. But their 90-minute meeting behind closed doors is remembered as a frosty one.
Mr Obama sharply criticised Mr Putin over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops had been fighting Russian-backed separatists since 2014.
The two leaders also clashed over Syria and the fate of then president Bashar al Assad at a time when Moscow was poised to intervene militarily on Assad’s side against rebel forces.
So, what’s happened since then?
A lot. Mr Trump has served a full term as president, and started his second.
He has been in contact with his Russian counterpart since winning the election in 2016. They first met in person in 2017 in Hamburg, Germany, during a G20 economic summit.
Their most famous meeting was in 2018 in Helsinki, Finland, where Mr Trump prompted backlash after telling reporters that he trusted Mr Putin over his own intelligence services, after the Russian leader denied Moscow interfered with the 2016 election.
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Undoubtedly the biggest change is that Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The pair have not met in person since then, but even before he was re-elected, Mr Trump claimed he was capable of ending the conflict altogether.
Securing a permanent ceasefire has since been a big focus for the Trump administration, and in a bid to be seen as the ‘dealmaker’, Mr Trump has pushed for an in-person meeting with Mr Putin numerous times.
What has ensued is a series of peace talks, but there has been no sign of change on the battlefield.
Frustrations mounted and in July, Mr Trump said he would implement “severe tariffs” on Russia and countries that continue to buy Russian oil unless Moscow reaches a peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days.
Two weeks later, on 28 July he said that he will shorten that deadline to 10-12 days – the same day as the Alaska meeting.
Why Alaska?
Alaska – which the US purchased from the Russian Empire 158 years ago – not only physically bridges both countries across the polar expanse, but is important in geopolitics due to its untapped fossil fuels, Sky News’ US correspondent David Blevins says.
When the leaders meet at the remote Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a US military installation in Anchorage, it will mark Mr Trump’s first trip to Alaska since beginning his second term and Mr Putin will become the first Russian president to visit the state.
Mr Trump has aggressively pushed for more control in the Arctic and by holding talks there, Blevins says, it centres the conversation to where global energy and territorial stakes are high.
The journey alone is no easy feat. It will take Mr Putin nine hours from Moscow, and Mr Trump eight from Washington DC.
Sky News’ US correspondent Martha Kelner says meeting in Alaska also allows Mr Putin to avoid flying over “unfriendly skies”, taking away any jeopardy for the Russian leader caused by the International Criminal Court’s warrant for his arrest. The court is not recognised in the US.
What do both sides want from the meeting?
In a news conference on Tuesday, Mr Trump said he is going to use the meeting to see what Mr Putin “has in mind” to end the three-and-a-half-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The US president said he would “see what the parameters” for a peace deal are, but stressed it would include some “land swapping going on” between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has consistently rejected the idea that Ukraine must commit to giving up land to secure a ceasefire.
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Russia currently holds shaky control over four of the country’s regions, two in the country’s east and two in the south.
Sky News US correspondent James Matthews told the Trump 100 podcast that if there was going to be a landmark peace deal, there would have been months of negotiations behind the scenes.
Instead, Mr Trump “seems to be freestyling his way through it”, Matthews says.
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Sky News’ Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett says that from the Russian side, the meeting can be seen in two ways.
He says on the one hand, Russia has always maintained that it would only meet at a presidential level if there’s something to agree on.
On the other, it might just be the latest attempt by the Kremlin to diffuse Mr Trump’s anger and dodge his tariff deadline.
By this logic, the Alaska meeting would give Mr Trump something that can be presented as progress, but in reality, it delivers anything but, Bennett says.
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What has Ukraine said?
Mr Zelenskyy has said Russia “wants to buy time, not end the war”.
He also cited a report from Ukraine’s intelligence and military command, saying Russia was redeploying troops and forces “in ways that suggest preparations for new offensive operations”.
The leaders of 26 EU countries have also rallied behind Ukraine, signing a joint statement warning that Ukraine must have a role in deciding its future.
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Thanking European allies in a post on X, Mr Zelenskyy said: “The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people.”
It is a message heard repeatedly from Europe since the Alaska summit was announced, as leaders try to make sure it, and Ukraine, are not sidelined from talks.
