On August 9, it became known that the meeting of Russian and American Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will be held on August 15 in Alaska. The bilateral summit will be held in this state for the first time. According to the aide to the Russian President Yuri Ushakov, it will be dedicated to discussing the long-term settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. This will be the first meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025; during his first presidential term (2017-2021), they held six meetings.
The first meeting of the presidents took place on July 7, 2017, within the framework of the G-20 summit in Hamburg. Instead of the planned 30-45 minutes, the talks, which also included Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes. The participants focused on the war in Syria and the crisis in Ukraine, the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and issues of combating terrorism and cybersecurity. Agreements were reached on a ceasefire in the de-escalation zone in southwestern Syria, on the establishment of a bilateral communication channel between representatives of the Russian Federation and the United States to promote the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, and on simplifying the process of appointing new ambassadors. The issue of Russian diplomatic property confiscated in the United States in December 2016 was also discussed, but it was not possible to resolve this issue. The meeting also raised the issue of Moscow's alleged interference in the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States. At the closing press conference, Vladimir Putin noted that the US president had taken into account his arguments that there had been no such interference. Donald Trump called the meeting with the Russian president "incredible".
On November 10, 2017, on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Danang (Vietnam), Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump managed to talk "on foot" three times. According to the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov, these contacts compensated for the lack of a full-scale meeting (it was initiated, but canceled on the eve of the summit by the American side). The presidents issued a joint statement on the fight against terrorism in Syria. Donald Trump later noted that he had a “good meeting with President Putin“.
The presidents met for the third time on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki. They spoke privately for more than two hours (longer than planned), after which the talks continued with the participation of the heads of the foreign ministries of both countries. At the final press conference, the presidents said that they had discussed the issue of nuclear disarmament, the situation in Ukraine, the problem of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, and the “Nord Stream 2“ gas pipeline project. Particular attention was paid to the development of economic relations between the two countries. No agreements were announced after the summit. According to the Russian president, the talks "were held in a frank and businesslike atmosphere", and Donald Trump described the dialogue as "deeply productive".
The next full-scale summit was scheduled for November 11, 2018 in Paris, but the French authorities requested that the meeting be canceled so as not to distract the attention of the public and the press from the events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had only a brief conversation during a working breakfast at the Elysee Palace and agreed to meet on December 1, 2018 in Buenos Aires at the G-20 summit. However, two days earlier, Trump canceled the meeting, citing Russia's refusal to release Ukrainian sailors detained on November 25, 2018 in the Kerch Strait (at that time, three Ukrainian ships were detained for illegally crossing the Russian border). However, on December 1, the leaders of Russia and the United States held a brief informal conversation "on foot" on the sidelines of the G-20 summit. According to the Russian leader's aide Yuri Ushakov, the conversation lasted 10-15 minutes, and the Russian president briefed his counterpart on the situation in the Kerch Strait.
The next meeting of the presidents took place on June 28, 2019, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. The heads of state agreed to continue discussing arms control, touched on the situation in Syria and Ukraine, and reaffirmed their commitment to the Minsk agreements. The conversation lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes and, according to the Russian leader's press secretary Dmitry Peskov, was positive.