Putin Departs For Alaska To Meet Trump, Stops In Magadan

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump/DOCUMENTATION Mikhail Metzel/TAPS

JAKARTA - Russian President Vladimir Putin stopped in Magadan, Russia's far east region, on his way to Alaska to attend his summit with US President Donald Trump.

Putin is in the city of Magadan for a comprehensive regional trip that includes visits to industrial factories and meetings with regional governors.

"This city is important. Putin has been there many times, even when he served as prime minister," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

It took about eight hours of flights from Moscow to Magadan, and then another four hours from Magadan to Anchorage, Alaska, where the summit was held.

Before leaving for Alaska, Putin chaired a meeting attended by members of the negotiating team who would join him at the summit, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to brief him on how the Ukraine crisis negotiations proceed.

"The American government is currently doing, in my opinion, a fairly energetic and sincere effort to stop hostilities, stop the crisis, and reach an agreement that benefits all parties involved in this conflict," Putin said. August.

Putin also said peace would be strengthened between Russia and the US and a wider world if the two countries reached an agreement in the field of strategic offensive arms control.

In a separate statement, Trump believes Russian President Vladimir Putin will agree to end the war in Ukraine.

"I'm sure by now he will reach an agreement. He will reach an agreement. I think he will achieve it and we will find out soon," Trump said while appearing at the "The Brian Kilmeade Show" on Fox Radio, Thursday, August 14 morning local time.

Trump remains high expectations of the meeting after officials of the White House earlier this week underestimated the face-to-face session as "hearing training."

Trump also hinted that his goal was to reach a trilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, citing "three different locations" being considered, including the possibility of staying in Alaska.

However, Trump gave an important warning: "If the meeting was bad, I wouldn't call anyone, I would go home. But if the meeting was good, I would call President Zelenskyy and European leaders," he continued.

When asked if Trump would offer Russia economic incentives during the meeting, Trump refused to speak.

"Well, I'd rather not say it because I don't want to show my skills in public, but whatever my ability, economic incentives and maybe disincentives are more important, in some sense, but economic incentives, you know," he said.