ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Russian President Vladimir Putin has been pressed twice by reporters during his high-stakes summit with President Donald Trump in Alaska on whether he would commit to stopping the killing of civilians.
“President Putin, will you stop killing civilians?” a reporter asked Putin on Friday after Trump and Putin shook hands on the tarmac of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.
TRUMP AND PUTIN START ‘HIGH-STAKES’ IN-PERSON MEETING TO END RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Putin, who speaks English, tapped his ear and shrugged, signaling he could not hear or understand.
Trump and Putin then stepped into the presidential limousine, known as The Beast, accompanied only by a driver and Secret Service agent for the short commute to the summit site elsewhere on the base, and were captured on camera laughing in the back seat.
Once at the summit site, against a background of United States and Russian flags, in addition to a banner emblazoned with the words “Pursuing Peace,” Putin was asked the same question. This time, he seemed to respond, but his reaction was impossible to hear over the cacophony of the chaos in the room.
Trump and Putin are now scheduled to take part in a three-on-three meeting attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Russian foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov, addressing critics’ concerns regarding Trump being alone in a room with Putin, a former Russian intelligence officer.
After the meeting, the group of six is expected to be expanded for a sit-down lunch before an anticipated joint press conference, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
The summit is being held under the pretense of discussing Putin’s three-year war in Ukraine, but the Russian has indicated his preference for the conversation to also touch on economic issues and a nuclear arms treaty.
Read more from the Washington Examiner on the Trump-Putin meeting:
