U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he’ll meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in every week’s time, as he continued to boost the prospect of finally reaching an end to the war in Ukraine.
“The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of america of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will happen next Friday, August 15, 2025, within the Great State of Alaska,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Further details to follow. Thanks in your attention to this matter!”
Trump confirmed the meeting with Putin as Canada said it intends to lower the worth cap on Russian oil, alongside Britain and the European Union, to exert “renewed pressure” on Moscow to finish the war it began greater than three-and-a-half years ago with its invasion.
Friday also marked Trump’s deadline for the Kremlin to make peace or face additional U.S. sanctions.
Despite no end to fighting on the bottom, Trump expressed optimism earlier Friday that there was progress being made toward ending the conflict.
“I believe we’re getting very close,” he told reporters on the White House, adding that first “we’re going to have a gathering with Russia.”
“I’ll be meeting very shortly with President Putin. It might have been sooner, but I suppose there’s security arrangements that unfortunately people must make. Otherwise, I’d do it much quicker. He’d like to satisfy as soon as possible. I agree with it, but we’ll be announcing that very shortly.”
Trump also appeared to partially confirm a report earlier Friday from Bloomberg that a peace deal backed by the U.S. and Russia would cement Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine, though the U.S. president suggested Ukraine could also regain some territory.
“It’s very complicated, but we’re going to get some back, we’re going to get some switched,” he said. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of each, but we’ll be talking about that either later or tomorrow or whatever.”
Trump’s meeting with Putin might be the primary U.S.-Russia summit since 2021, when former U.S. president Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva.
Trump said Thursday that he would meet with Putin even when the Russian leader won’t meet along with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That stoked fears in Europe that Ukraine may very well be sidelined in efforts to stop the war.
Get every day National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
Putin and the Kremlin have repeatedly said they’re open to meeting with Zelenskyy but just once a peace deal is near completion.
Canada, allies up pressure
In a joint statement Friday, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said the worth cap for Russian crude oil shipments can be lowered from US$60 to US$47.60 per barrel alongside the U.K. and the EU.
Ukraine’s allies have targeted Russian oil profits because the war began in an effort to degrade Moscow’s military, while also trying to forestall energy shortages in countries that depend on those exports.
“By further lowering the worth cap on Russian crude oil, Canada and its partners are ratcheting up the economic pressure and limiting an important source of funding for Russia’s illegal war,” Champagne said in a press release.
The federal government said existing price caps of US$100 on high-value refined Russian oil products, equivalent to diesel and petrol, and US$45 on low-value refined oil products, equivalent to fuel oil, remain unaffected by the change.
Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to position a further 25 per cent tariff on India for its purchases of Russian oil, and has warned of sanctions and tariffs for some other foreign purchases.
Fighting continues in Ukraine
Ukrainian forces are locked in intense battles along the 1,000-kilometre front line that snakes from northeast to southeast Ukraine.
The Pokrovsk area of the eastern Donetsk region is taking the brunt of punishment as Russia seeks to interrupt out into the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine has significant shortages of fighters.
Intense fighting can also be going down in Ukraine’s northern Sumy border region, where Ukrainian forces are engaging Russian soldiers to forestall reinforcements being sent from there to Donetsk.
Within the Pokrovsk area of Donetsk, a commander said he believes Moscow isn’t all in favour of peace.
“It’s not possible to barter with them. The one option is to defeat them,” Buda, a commander of a drone unit within the Spartan Brigade, told The Associated Press. He used only his call sign, in step with the foundations of the Ukrainian military.
“I would love them to agree and for all this to stop, but Russia won’t comply with that. It doesn’t wish to negotiate. So the one option is to defeat them,” he said.
Within the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a howitzer commander using the decision sign Warsaw, said troops are determined to thwart Russia’s invasion.
“We’re on our land, we’ve no way out,” he said. “So we stand our ground, we’ve no selection.”
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment Thursday that “Putin stays tired of ending his war and is attempting to extract bilateral concessions from america without meaningfully engaging in a peace process.”
“Putin continues to imagine that point is on Russia’s side and that Russia can outlast Ukraine and the West,” it said.
Yet Trump claimed Friday that he believes Putin “desires to see peace” just as much as Zelenskyy does.
Zelenskyy said Friday in his nightly address to the Ukrainian those who Kyiv and European allies he’s spoken to in recent days agree it was now possible to realize at the least a ceasefire, depending on adequate pressure on Russia.
— With files from the Associated Press
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.