The University of Alaska Anchorage is expecting hundreds of Russian delegates who are in the city for the summit between President Trump and President Vladimir Putin to stay in student dorms.
“There may be up to 750 people staying on campus between the U.S. and Russian delegations,” vice chancellor Ryan Buchholdt said in an email to the Alaskan newspaper, Anchorage Daily News.
The school can house around 12,000 people. This week marks the start of the school calendar for those returning from the summer break.
The summit is going to be held at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, about a 10-minute drive from Anchorage, reports Alaska’s News Source. The meeting will mark the first time Trump and Putin have met in person since 2018.
“In addition to the dorms, we do have the Alaska Airlines Center [a sports arena that has a 5,000-seat capacity] that has been set up with beds, meeting most of the need, mostly from the Russian delegation side,” Buchholdt also told Alaska’s News Source.
University police are working closely with state and federal law agencies to monitor security, Buchholdt added.
“Our main concern is making sure anyone who is staying on campus, whether they are from the United States or Russia or any other locality, is safe,” Buchholdt said, “and is able to do the mission that they’re here to do and go back home safely.”
On Thursday, some of the delegates had already arrived as of Thursday afternoon, according to university spokesperson Katie Bender.
Flight tracking data showed that at least one flight from Moscow had touched down in Anchorage that afternoon.
“The delegations are in separate locations. For security purposes, we are not able to share where the delegations are located,” Bender added.
Alyeska resort, located about 40 miles south of Anchorage, informed local press that they were fully booked for the weekend, and the website of the local hotel, Captain Cook, was also fully booked. The hotel site Booking.com showed one remaining room in a hostel, at a staggeringly raised price of $150 a night on Friday.
Town mayor Suzanne LaFrance explained that finding accommodation at the height of the tourist season is hard enough as it is, let alone with a significant political event taking center stage.
“I know that people are looking at creative solutions. I don’t have any specific details about that [housing delegations in UOA], but I know that the university is engaged in those conversations, and I’m optimistic that we’ll come up with some options for folks,” she said to Alaska’s News Source.
At the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, news and camera crews were seen rolling in on Thursday morning.
Locals watched on as officials gathered in the vicinity. “It’s kind of a big deal, I mean, do we all want World War III?” one man told Alaska’s News Source.
The two leaders will hold peace talks regarding the future of Russia and Ukraine, amid a deadly war that has killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides. Earlier on Thursday, Putin praised Trump’s “energetic and sincere efforts to stop” the war in Ukraine.
More than a million Russian troops have been killed or injured since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, reports the British Ministry of Defense.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian personnel fatalities and casualties have amounted to around 400,000, says the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Ahead of the summit, Trump vowed that Putin was “not going to mess around with me,” as he hopes to secure a ceasefire deal.
The Independent contacted the university, along with the Anchorage tourism board, for comment.
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