Russian nationalists have long demanded the return of Alaska. Now Trump has invited ICC-indicted Putin to the state
President Donald Trump is set to meet with Vladimir Putin in Alaska next week, the state that Russia once laid claim to and nationalists want to take back.
Trump announced Friday that a meeting has been set with the Russian leader on August 15 in the Last Frontier state to discuss the war in Ukraine, which the president claimed he would end “on Day One.”
Despite facing an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, the meeting would mark the first time in a decade that Putin has set foot on U.S. soil.
“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,” Trump declared on Truth Social.
Critics pointed out that Russia once laid claim to the state of Alaska at the beginning of the 1770s—where they mercilessly exploited Alaskan natives to hunt fur for the Russians—and nationalists have long wanted to take it back.
Alaska was purchased from the Russians by the U.S. for a sum of $7.2 million in 1867—the equivalent of between $129 million and $153.5 million today.
“Trump has chosen to host Putin in a part of the former Russian Empire. Wonder if he knows that Russian nationalists claim that losing Alaska, like Ukraine, was a raw deal for Moscow that needs to be corrected,” said Michael McFaul, a professor of political science at Stanford University and former. U.S. ambassador to Russia.
“Let’s all hope that Putin doesn’t ask to take Alaska home with him as a souvenir, or Trump might give that away too,” political commentator David Frum said in a post on X.
“Trump inviting war criminal Putin to America is nauseating enough, but hosting him in Alaska — while Putin’s pet propagandists routinely demand it back from the US on state TV — is beyond the pale,” author and commentator Julia Davis wrote on X. “Unless Putin is arrested upon arrival, there’s no excuse.”
She posted a series of clips and screenshots of pro-Putin Russian commentators suggesting that Alaska should be part of their country once again.
Trump’s former national security adviser-turned foe, John Bolton, said the move reminded him of a blunder the president allegedly nearly made in his first term.
“This is not quite as bad as Trump inviting the Taliban to Camp David to talk about the peace negotiations in Afghanistan,” Bolton told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “But it certainly reminds one of that.”
“The only better place for Putin than Alaska would be if the summit were being held in Moscow,” Bolton added. “So the initial setup, I think, is a great victory for Putin.”
Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent of Puck News, tweeted: “So Vladimir Putin, who has an ICC warrant out for his arrest, gets a meeting with the U.S. president on U.S. soil without having to give up or even promise anything—after ignoring and insulting Trump. One more win for Putin, one more loss for Trump.”
