A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet today in Anchorage, Alaska, for a high-stakes summit aimed at ending Russia's war with Ukraine. In just a few minutes, we'll speak with former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul to get his take on today's meeting. But first, let's take a look at how we got here.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Trump has said that ending the war is his priority.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And if it's a bad meeting, it'll end very quickly. And if it's a good meeting, we're going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.
MARTIN: But Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not invited. That meeting, Trump says, could come next.
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TRUMP: All I want to do is set the table for the next meeting, which should happen shortly. I'd like to see it happen very quickly, very shortly after this meeting.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith is in Anchorage. Tam, what's expected for this big summit?
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: This will all take place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on the outskirts of Anchorage. The meeting is set to start at 11 a.m. local time out here. That's 3 p.m. on the East Coast. Trump and Putin will first meet one-on-one. Trump has said he will be feeling out Putin and whether he's serious about ending the war, after numerous phone calls over the past six months that really haven't moved the needle. Next, they'll be joined by their advisers for a working lunch. And yesterday, the White House said that Trump and Putin will hold a joint press conference.
MARTÍNEZ: Really? OK. So I remember their last joint press conference. That was - what? - in Helsinki, Finland, 2018, I believe, right? I remember it was widely viewed as a bit of an embarrassment for the U.S. at the time.
KEITH: Yeah. That summit took place as a special counsel was investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. That investigation is something that Trump is still raging about. He calls it the Russia Russia Russia hoax. So during that joint press conference, Putin denied any election interference, and Trump appeared to take Putin's side over that of the U.S. intelligence community. Trump faced incredible backlash at home among Republicans and Democrats alike and eventually walked back some of what he said. But now, seven years later, Trump says that summit was a success, and he is positioning himself as uniquely able to handle Putin.
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TRUMP: If I weren't president, in my opinion, he would much rather take off - take over all of Ukraine. But I am president, and he's not going to mess around with me.
KEITH: In 2018, when Trump met with Putin, the domestic political stakes for Trump were quite high, but Trump was focused on terrorism and nuclear nonproliferation. Looking back, those were much simpler times. Now Putin is four years into the latest chapter of this war and is testing U.S. and European resolve.
MARTÍNEZ: Oh, for those simpler times, Tam. All right. So what does success look like from this meeting today?
KEITH: Trump has been all over the map in terms of his expectations for the meeting. He's talked about the need to divvy up territory. That's something that Ukraine's president has opposed. Trump hasn't really been precise in what he wants to see today. And there are concerns that Trump could be wooed by happy talk from Putin about economic cooperation or something else that Trump can call a win. But Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated with Putin for saying he wants peace while continuing to bomb civilians in Ukraine. He said there could be consequences for Russia if something meaningful doesn't happen here today. And a reminder that he has allowed the sale of powerful weapons systems to NATO to help Ukraine and has threatened to punish countries like India for buying Russian oil. Now this meeting leaves an open question of what comes next as Russia makes gains on the battlefield.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Tamara Keith in Anchorage. Tamara, thanks.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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