NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Russian President Vladimir Putin will return to the U.S. for the first time in a decade when he meets with President Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday.
Following Trump’s announcement last week that the pair would be meeting for an in-person summit – marking the first time a U.S. president will meet with Putin after he invaded Ukraine in 2022, less than a year after he met with Biden in 2021 in Geneva – several locations were suspected as being the most likely meeting places, including Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and the United Arab Emirates.
It was reported that Putin shot down the idea of Italy, as it is seen as being favorable to Ukraine, and instead pushed for Hungary.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and then-President Barack Obama share a toast during the luncheon at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 28, 2015. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
TRUMP GOES AFTER ZELENSKYY OVER ‘LAND SWAPPING’ DISPUTE, LAYS OUT ‘FEEL OUT MEETING’ WITH PUTIN
However, Trump surprised the nation when he announced on Friday that Putin would instead be traveling to Alaska for his first U.S. trip since he attended the U.N. General Assembly in New York in 2015, when he met with then-President Barack Obama.
On Monday, Trump said he thought it was “very respectful that the president of Russia is coming to our country as opposed to us going to his country or even a third-party place.”
It is unclear why a third-party nation like the UAE was not selected. Though the justification for why Hungary was not selected – despite being led by Viktor Orbán who is friendly with both Putin and Trump – could be because it is a member of NATO and would likely prove controversial should a NATO ally host the Kremlin chief at a time when Europe faces its greatest threat since World War II.
Similarly, dubious optics could be attributed to not hosting the meeting in Switzerland, which, though not a NATO ally, is a member of the International Criminal Court which issued an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 over accusations of war crimes.
President Donald Trump, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands at the beginning of a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki on July 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
“They probably avoided Europe, because if they included Europe, then Europe would have demanded that they’re actually at the table,” Dan Hoffman, former CIA Moscow Station chief, told…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at FOX News : World…