In the initial talks, visiting President Putin brought with him Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov as support. Host Trump was assisted by Foreign Minister Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Thus, the two delegations deviated from the previous agreement that Putin and Trump would have a private meeting, accompanied only by two interpreters.
High stakes
"High stakes", Trump had written in capital letters on his own platform Truth Social when he boarded the presidential plane Air Force One before the trip to Alaska.
Prior to the talks, Trump said that they would, among other things, discuss the exchange of territories.
It will be discussed, but I have to let Ukraine make that decision, and I think they will make a good decision, he said according to BBC.
However, the outside world's expectations of concrete results from the talks were meager. Even President Trump seemed to tone down hopes of success, and he repeated the threat of leaving the meeting with Putin after a few minutes if he mistrusted the Russian leader's intentions.
Russian offensive
Putin, in turn, took his time to travel to the US state. He chose to make a stopover in Magadan in eastern Russia, where he, among other things, visited a local children's ice hockey team during a training session. He also visited a monument that honored Soviet-American cooperation during World War II.
The Kremlin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced during the trip that the meeting between the two leaders would last for "at least 6-7 hours". The meeting at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base is the first between the two presidents since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is not invited to participate, has secured European support for Ukraine's stance in the conflict being crucial.
Zelensky said that Russian attacks have intensified in eastern Ukraine ahead of the meeting and Russian soldiers are being sacrificed to gain negotiating advantages.
The French presidential office Élysée Palace announced before the meeting that Zelensky would meet Emmanuel Macron after the meeting between Putin and Trump.
