OAN Staff Blake Wolf
12:37 PM – Sunday, August 9, 2025
President Donald Trump announced that he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on American soil next Friday to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine.
“The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska. Further details to follow,” President Trump wrote on Friday.
The upcoming talks between the two world leaders follow after President Trump gave Putin a 10-12 day deadline to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine, or potentially face “very severe tariffs” and sanctions.
The deadline seemingly expired on August 8th, suggesting Trump’s upcoming conversation with Putin could have extremely high stakes.
Meanwhile, European leaders have begun petitioning for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to be present for negotiations regarding the future of Ukraine.
“On Friday, it is important to see how serious Putin is, and the only one who can do that is President Trump,” stated NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Sunday.
“It’s really crucial that a meeting takes place. It will not be the final say on this,” Rutte continued. “Of course, Ukraine will have to be involved in Europe, but it is important to start the next phase of this process, putting pressure on the Russians, exactly as President Trump has been doing over the last six months.”
Rutte went on to state that President Trump “basically broke the deadlock” by opening communication with Putin at the beginning of his term.
The NATO secretary general added that weapons deliveries to Ukraine will continue regardless of the outcome of Friday’s meeting to “make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to stay in the fight and be in the best possible position” for upcoming negotiations.
Rutte previously praised Trump after the NATO summit in June, as Trump secured a push for member nations to raise their defense spending to 5% of their GDP, which he characterized as a signal to Russia.
Zelensky was not named as a participant in the summit, however, a White House official stated that the Trump administration would likely meet with Zelensky after the summit with Putin, according to a CNN report.
The White House official added that President Trump remains “open to a trilateral summit with both leaders,” although “the White House is planning the bilateral meeting requested by President Putin.”
Additionally, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, expressed hope that President Trump will pressure Putin with sanctions and tariffs to “finally stop his aggression.
“We want Putin to stop,” Markarova stated in a Sunday interview. “And we really are hopeful that this push from President Trump and the sanction packages which are on the table and secondary sanctions which are already implemented against those who help Russia will convince President Putin that this is time for him to finally stop his aggression.”
Despite the optimism, others have expressed a skeptical outlook on the upcoming meeting. Arizona Democrat Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) criticized Trump for taking the meeting, arguing that “Putin is a war criminal.”
“This is not a show of strength to allow him to fly into the United States, to land here, to negotiate with our president,” Kelly stated. “I hope we got something out of this.”
The terms of the negotiation remain unclear, although Trump stated last week that the negotiations are likely to involve “some swapping of territories.”
The entry of Ukraine into NATO remains a major roadblock, as Russia has consistently insisted that any path to peace would include Ukraine foregoing its aspirations of joining NATO, while Ukrainian leaders have insisted that peace must include a path to NATO membership.
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