When U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday, it will be the latest chapter in the 49th state’s long history with Russia — and with international tensions.

The Trump-Putin summit will take place in a former Russian colony that the United States bought for $7.2 million in 1867. Here’s how the deal came together and why its legacy matters.

The meeting between President Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin is taking place in a region rich with significance for Moscow. Once Russian territory, Alaska was sold by Alexander II in 1867 for $7.

Russia's decision to sell Alaska was influenced by its financial struggles following the Crimean War and the desire to strengthen ties with the United States, a fellow rival of Great Britain. Selling Alaska provided Russia with much-needed cash and ensured that Britain would not gain control of the territory.

President Trump visits Alaska Friday for a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin — a discussion the White House has called a "listening exercise."

Russia says it invaded Ukraine to halt Kyiv's ambitions to join NATO, the U.S.-led defensive alliance, which it saw as a major security threat. It also accuses Kyiv of persecuting ethnic Russians and their culture in Ukraine.

Alaska, the US state that will host the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on Friday, is a source of imperial nostalgia and often less-than-serious territorial claims in Russia.In 2014, Vladimir Putin,

United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine. On Wednesday, following a virtual meeting with European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,

In the early hours of Saturday morning following a summit in Alaska between the leaders of Russia and the United States, senior politicians in Moscow were quick to trumpet the meeting as a win for Russia and its narrative of the war in Ukraine.

Russian forces appear to have donned the US flag for a fresh offensive in Ukraine, after American President Donald Trump's summit with Vladimir Putin.

The video circulated ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's August 2025 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held calls on Saturday with his Turkish and Hungarian counterparts, the Russian foreign ministry said, hours after a summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents yielded no deal on ending the war in Ukraine.