It’s beginning to feel like “Midnight Sun” diplomacy.
In parts of Alaska, the sun doesn’t set in summer, casting light through the night but leaving you disorientated.
Ukraine latest: Zelenskyy reject’s Putin’s proposal
Friday’s Trump-Putin summit is pitched as “transparent” but it’s difficult to find any path to peace right now.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has reduced it to a “listening exercise” where Donald Trump will seek a “better understanding” of the situation.
There isn’t much to understand – Russia wants territory, Ukraine isn’t ceding it – but Ms Leavitt rejects talk of them “tempering expectations”.
It’s possible to be both hopeful and measured, she says, because Mr Trump wants peace but is only meeting one side on Friday.
It’s the fact that he’s only meeting Vladimir Putin that concerns European leaders, who fear Ukraine could be side-lined by any Trump-Putin pact.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims Mr Putin wants the rest of Donetsk and, in effect, the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
He’s ruled out surrendering that because it would rob him of key defence lines and leave Kyiv vulnerable to future offensives.
Read more:
What happened last time Putin was in the US
The snowy remote base where talks will take place
The land Ukraine could be forced to give up
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‘Steps have been taken to remedy the situation’ in Pokrovsk
European leaders – including Sir Keir Starmer – will hold online talks with Mr Zelenskyy twice on Wednesday, on either side of a virtual call with Mr Trump and US Vice President JD Vance.
Their concerns may be getting through, hence the White House now framing the summit as a cautious fact-finding exercise and nothing more.
The only thing we really learned from the latest news conference is that the first Trump-Putin meeting in six years will be in Anchorage.
A White House official later confirmed it would be at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a US military facility.
The US base where the talks will take place. Pic: Reuters
Alaska itself, with its history and geography, is a layered metaphor: a place the Russians sold to the US in the 1800s.
A remote but strategic frontier where the lines of ownership and the rules of negotiation are once again being sketched out.
On a clear day, you can see Russia from Alaska, but without Mr Zelenskyy in the room, it’s difficult to see them conquering any summit.
In the place where the sun never sets, the deal might never start.