Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet in Alaska on Friday for talks on ending the war in Ukraine, and to revive their diplomatic and economic ties. It's a first-of-a-kind summit in a location loaded with history, symbolism and strategic importance.
While Trump told reporters on Monday that he was “going to Russia on Friday" to meet with Putin, Alaska has been part of the United States since 1867 – when Russia sold it for $7.2 million.
The US state lies just 53 miles from Russia across the Bering Strait at its narrowest point, between Russia's Chukchi Peninsula and Alaska's Seward Peninsula. There is a 21-hour time difference because the International Date Line runs through the strait.
The talks will mark the first visit by a Russian leader to Alaska and Putin’s first trip to the US since 2015. The location avoids legal and logistical obstacles.
The US is not a member of the International Criminal Court, which in 2023 issued a warrant for Putin on accusations of war crimes. This means Washington has no legal obligation to arrest him. Putin can also travel to Alaska without crossing other nations’ airspace.
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From colony to cooperation
The choice of Alaska also recalls the long history between the two countries.
Working for Russia, 18th century Danish explorer Vitus Bering discovered the strait separating Asia from the Americas that now bears his name.
Russian merchants capitalised on Alaska's fur trade, reselling furs bought from indigenous hunters at vast profit through the Russian-American Company, which ran a trading colony on the territory.
However, in 1867, Tsar Alexander II sold the territory to Washington for $7.2 million, following Russia's defeat in the Crimean War, which had left it with enormous debts.
The deal was criticised in both countries: Americans saw it as a useless frozen wasteland, while some Russians said the price was too low – especially when Alaska was subsequently found to contain vast deposits of gold, copper and other valuable minerals.
Alaska became important in military cooperation after both the US and the Soviet Union entered the Second World War in 1941, serving as a route for US-built aircraft and supplies to Russia.
The territory played a vital role in military cooperation after both the US and the Soviet Union entered World War II in 1941, serving as a route for the transfer of US-built aircraft and other supplies to Russian territory.
During the Cold War its proximity to Russia made it a strategic frontline. Locals nicknamed the closed border the "Ice Curtain".
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Traces of Russian culture
Alaska officially became the 49th US state in January 1959, but traces of its Russian history remain – most visibly in the Russian Orthodox churches that dot the territory.
While, according to the US census, only 1.4 percent of Alaska's population of just over 740,000 – amounting to around 10,360 people – have Russian heritage, the state's Russian Orthodox diocese had around 30,000 members as of 2006, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The community is served by 35 churches, with their distinctive domes, established during the Russian-American Company era, as well as a seminary on Kodiak Island. The religion remains the main legacy of the Russian colonial period.
Although most Russians returned to Russia after Alaska was sold, the church had by then become a way of life in the region, integrated into local traditions.
As Richard Dauenhauer, a professor of native languages and culture at the University of Alaska Southeast told the Los Angeles Times: "It’s very easy to stereotype missionaries as having imposed a completely foreign religion on natives here. But there was actually a lot of synthesis of orthodoxy with the Aleutian [indigenous] culture. A lot of what happened in the native tradition was baptised into the church."
One congregant, Eleanor Tomaganuk, told the American daily: "We were brought up this way. There’s very much a feeling that this is our church."
Russian surnames too are common, even among those with no Russian ancestry – another legacy of the period of colonialism, during which names were assigned to Alaskan natives – and a Russian dialect is still spoken in some communities.
Alaskan Russian has two distinct varieties, both influenced by local Alaskan languages – Kodiak Russian and Ninilchik Russian – although today it is on the verge of extinction, with most speakers over the age of 75.
'Alaska is ours!'
After the collapse of the USSR, Alaska was the subject of nostalgia for Russians. A 1992 song by the band Lyube included the line: “Don’t play the fool, America... give back our dear little Alaska.”
The band has reportedly begun performing the song again recently, as some pro-Putin nationalists call for Alaska’s return.
United 24, the Ukrainian government's media and fundraising platform, highlighted recent Russian propaganda around ownership of the territory in a social media post.
Examples include a billboard proclaiming "Alaska is ours!", a military patch that shows Alaska as part of Russian territory, the music video for Lyube's song (which features images of Alaska being detached from the American continent by cannon fire), and a children's choir performing a song saying "we'll return Alaska to the motherland's harbour".
In December 2024, Newsweek reported that Russian TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, a close ally of Putin, had said on a Russian state media programme that Finland, Warsaw, the Baltics, Moldova and Alaska should be "returned to the Russian empire".
Commenting on the setting for Friday's talks, former US ambassador to Russia and professor of political science at Stanford University, Michael McFaul, posted on X: "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."
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Sam Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College London, posted on the same platform: "The symbolism of holding the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska is horrendous – as though designed to demonstrate that borders can change, land can be bought and sold.
Two days later, Trump said at Monday's press conference: “There’ll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody. To the good, for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff. Also, some bad stuff for both.”
He went on to describe the summit as a "feel-out meeting" to hear what Putin "has in mind" about ending the war in Ukraine, adding: "I may say – lots of luck, keep fighting. Or I may say, we can make a deal."
This article was partially adapted from this article by RFI's French service.
