President Donald Trump has set Friday as a deadline for Russia’s Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine or face secondary sanctions.
President Donald Trump has set Friday as a deadline for Russia’s Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine or face secondary sanctions.
President Donald Trump said on Friday he will be meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin next Friday, Aug. 15 in Alaska.
“The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska. Further details to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he posted on his social media platform.
Earlier, he had hinted at the timing and location, saying, “I think you’ll be very happy.”
“We are going to have a meeting with Russia. We’ll start off with Russia and we’ll announce a location. I think the location will be a very popular one for a lot of reasons. But we’ll be announcing that a little bit later. I just don’t want to do it now because of the importance of what we just did,” Trump said as he hosted the leaders Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House for a peace summit.
Asked if this is Russia’s last chance to achieve piece, Trump responded, “I don’t like using the term ‘last chance.”
“I think my gut instinct really tells me that we have a shot at it. You’ll find that out later on, maybe even today, but we have a shot at it,” he said.
Friday marked the deadline Trump set for Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine or face “secondary sanctions” against countries that buy oil from Russia.
But uncertainty remains as to whether the U.S. will hit Moscow with new economic penalties as focus turns to the one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin. Trump did not comment on the deadline as he took questions from reporters at the White House.
Trump on Thursday was asked directly if his Aug. 8 deadline for Putin to make peace or face consequences still applied.
“It’s gonna be up to him,” the president responded. “We’re going to see what he has to say. It’s gonna be up to him. Very disappointed.”
The White House was pushing for a trilateral summit between Trump, Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, though Trump said Putin meeting with Zelenskyy wasn’t a condition for he and Putin to meet.
Still, Trump said on Friday the Ukrainian president will get “everything he needs.”
“The European leaders want to see peace. President Putin, I believe, wants to see peace. And Zelenskyy wants to see peace,” Trump said.
The president was asked if Zelenskyy will have to give up territory in any deal to end the war, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
“We’re looking at that but we’re actually looking to get some back and some swapping. It’s complicated. It’s actually nothing easy, it’s very complicated. But we’re going get some back, and we’re going to get some switched. There will be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,” Trump responded.
Trump, who once said he could end the Russia-Ukraine war within his first 24 hours in office and touted his personal relationship with Putin, has expressed increasing frustration with the Russian leader.
In mid-July, Trump said he was giving Putin a 50-day ultimatum to stop the fighting. He then moved up the timeline to 10 days, citing his disappointment with Putin.
“I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made,” Trump said at the time. “I’m not so interested in talking anymore. He talks, we have such nice conversations, such respectful and nice conversations, and then people die the following night in a — with a missile going into a town and hitting.”
Tensions between the U.S. and Russia escalated last week when Trump announced he was moving nuclear submarines in response to what he called “highly provocative statements” from the deputy chair of Russia’s security council, Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev, also the former president of Russia, had sounded off on Trump’s ceasefire deadline, writing on social media that “each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war.”
While Trump said the nuclear submarines would be moved in response, he and the White House would not specify what capabilities the submarines have or other questions surrounding the announcement.
And earlier this week, Trump indirectly upped the pressure on Russia by doubling his tariff rate against India over India’s imports of Russian oil.