Read the full transcript of presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin joint press conference in Alaska, August 15, 2025.
President Putin’s Opening Remarks
PRESIDENT PUTIN: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, our negotiations have been held in a constructive atmosphere of mutual respect. We had very thorough negotiations. We were quite useful. I would like to thank once again my American counterpart for the proposal to travel out here to Alaska.
It only makes sense that we’ve met here, because our countries, though separated by the oceans, are close neighbors. So when we’ve met, when I came out of the plane and I’ve said, “Good afternoon, dear neighbor, very good to see you in good health and to see you alive.” I think that is very neighborly, and I think that’s some kind words that we can say to each other.
We’re separated by the Strait of Bering, though there are two islands only between the Russian island and the U.S. island. They’re only four kilometers apart. We’re close neighbors, and it’s a fact.
Historical Connections Between Russia and Alaska
It’s also important that Alaska has to do with our common history between Russia and the U.S., and many positive events have to do with that territory. Still, there is tremendous cultural heritage back from the Russian America, for example, Orthodox churches and a lot of more than 700 geographical names of Russian origin.
During the Second World War, it was here in Alaska that was the origin of the legendary air bridge for the supply of military aircraft and other equipment under the land lease program. It was a dangerous and treacherous route over the vast emptiness of ice. However, the pilots of both countries did everything to bring hope to the victory. They risked their lives, and they gave it all for the common victory.
I was just in the city of Magadan in Russia, and there was a memorial there dedicated to the Russian and the U.S.
pilots, and there are two flags, the U.S. flag and the Russian flag. And I know that here as well, there was such a memorial. There was a military burial place several kilometers away from here. The Soviet pilots that buried there died during that dangerous mission. We’re thankful to the citizens and the government of the U.S. for carefully taking care of their memory. I think that’s very worthy and noble.
We’ll always remember other historical examples when our countries defeated common enemies together in the spirit of battle camaraderie and alliance that supported each other and facilitated each other. I’m sure that this heritage will help us rebuild and foster mutually beneficial and equal ties at this new stage, even during the hardest conditions.
Current State of U.S.-Russia Relations
We should know that there have been no summits between Russia and the U.S. for four years, and that’s a long time. This time was very hard for bilateral relations, and let’s be frank, they’ve fallen to the lowest point since the Cold War. I think that’s not benefiting our countries and the world as a whole.
Sooner or later, we had to amend the situation to move on from the confrontations to dialogue, and in this case, a personal meeting between the heads of state has been long overdue, naturally under the condition of serious and painstaking work, and this work has been done in general.
Me and President Trump have very good direct contact. We’ve spoken multiple times, we spoke frankly on the phone, and special envoy of the President, Mr. Whitkoff, traveled out to Russia several times. Our advisors and heads of foreign ministries kept in touch all the time, and you know fully well that one of the central issues was the situation around Ukraine.
Discussion on Ukraine Conflict
We see the strive of the administration and President Trump personally to help facilitate the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, and his strive to get to the crux of the matter, to understand this history, is precious. As I’ve said, the situation in Ukraine has to do with fundamental threats to our security.
Moreover, we’ve always considered the Ukrainian nation, and I’ve said it multiple times, a brotherly nation, however strange it may sound in these conditions. We have the same roots, and everything that’s happening is a tragedy for us, a terrible wound. Therefore, the country is sincerely interested in putting an end to it.
At the same time, we’re convinced that in order to make this settlement lasting and long-term, we need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict. And we’ve said it multiple times, to consider all legitimate concerns of Russia and to reinstate a just balance of security in Europe and in the world on the whole. And I agree with President Trump, as he has said today, that naturally, the security of Ukraine should be ensured as well. Naturally, we are prepared to work on that.
I would like to hope that the agreement that we’ve reached together will help us bring closer that goal and will pave the path towards peace in Ukraine. We expect that Kiev and European capitals will pursue that constructively and that they won’t throw a wrench in the works. They will not make any attempts to use some backroom dealings or to conduct provocations to torpedo the nascent progress.
Economic Cooperation and Trade
Incidentally, when the new administration came to power, bilateral trade started to grow. It’s still very symbolic. Still, we have a growth of 20%. As I’ve said, we have a lot of dimensions for joint work. It is clear that the US and Russian investment and business cooperation has tremendous potential.
Russia and the US can offer each other so much in trade, digital, high-tech, and in space exploration. We see that Arctic cooperation is also very possible in our international context, for example, between the far east of Russia and the west coast of the US.
Overall, it’s very important for our countries to turn the page, to go back to cooperation. It is symbolic that not far away from here, at the border between Russia and the US, there is a so-called international dateline. I think you can step over, literally, from yesterday into tomorrow. And I hope that we’ll succeed in that, in political sphere.
Closing Remarks from President Putin
I would like to thank President Trump for our joint work, for the well-wishing and trustworthy tone of our conversation. It’s important that both sides are result-oriented. And we see that the President of the US has a very clear idea of what he would like to achieve. He sincerely cares about prosperity of his nation. Still, he understands that Russia has its own national interest.
I expect that today’s agreements will be the starting point, not only for the solution of the Ukrainian issue, but also will help us bring back business-like and pragmatic relations between Russia and the US.
And in the end, I would like to add one more thing. I’d like to remind you that in 2022, during the last contact with the previous administration, I tried to convince my previous American colleague that the situation should not be brought to the point of no return when it would come to hostilities. And I said it quite directly back then that it’s a big mistake.
Today, when President Trump is saying that if he was the President back then, there would be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that. I think that overall, me and President Trump have built a very good business-like and trustworthy contact and have every reason to believe that moving down this path, we can come, and the sooner the better, to the end of the conflict in Ukraine. Thank you.
President Trump’s Response
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Mr. President. That was very profound. And I will say that I believe we had a very productive meeting. There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway. So there’s no deal until there’s a deal.
I will call up NATO in a little while. I will call up the various people that I think are appropriate, and I’ll, of course, call up President Zelensky and tell him about today’s meeting. It’s ultimately up to them. They’re going to have to agree with what Marco and Steve and some of the great people from the Trump administration who’ve come here, Scott and John Radcliffe. Thank you very much. But we have some of our really great leaders. They’ve been doing a phenomenal job.
We also have some tremendous Russian business representatives here, and I think, you know, everybody wants to deal with us. We’ve become the hottest country anywhere in the world in a very short period of time, and we look forward to that. We look forward to dealing.
Progress on Negotiations
We’re going to try and get this over with. We really made some great progress today. I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir. We had many, many tough meetings, good meetings. We were interfered with by the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. It made it a little bit tougher to deal with, but he understood it. I think he’s probably seen things like that during the course of his career. He’s seen it all.
But we had to put up with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax, but what was done was very criminal. But it made it harder for us to deal as a country in terms of the business and all of the things that we’d like to have dealt with. But we’ll have a good chance when this is over.
So just to put it very quickly, I’m going to start making a few phone calls and tell them what happened. But we had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to. There are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant. But we have a very good chance of getting there. We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.
Acknowledgments and Future Plans
I’d like to thank President Putin and his entire team, whose faces, who I know in many cases, otherwise, other than that, whose faces I get to see all the time in the newspapers. You’re almost as famous as the boss, but especially this one right over here. But we had some good meetings over the years, right? Good, productive meetings over the years, and we hope to have that in the future.
But let’s do the most productive one right now. We’re going to stop really five, six, seven thousand. Thousands of people a week from being killed, and President Putin wants to see that as much as I do.
So again, Mr. President, I’d like to thank you very much, and we’ll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon. Thank you very much, Vladimir.
PUTIN: Next time in Moscow.
TRUMP: Oh, that’s an interesting one. I’ll get a little heat on that one, but I could see it possibly happening. Thank you very much, Vladimir. And thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
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