President Trump is set to meet Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss the war in Ukraine. The summit excludes Ukraine’s president and reflects Trump’s ongoing controversial relationship with Putin. This meeting adds to Putin’s long history of navigating US leaders, from Clinton to Biden, according to the Foreign Policy. The summit highlights Trump’s distinctive foreign policy approach amid ongoing tensions over the conflict. They write:

When U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday for high-stakes talks, Trump will be coming face-to-face with a shrewd leader who has dealt with his fair share of U.S. presidents.

In Anchorage, the two presidents are set to discuss the future of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine—which began nearly three and a half years ago—without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the negotiating table.  […]

In contrast, former President Joe Biden met with Putin in person only once during his presidency. The two leaders met in Geneva in June 2021 for a high-level summit where the agenda was dominated by issues of arms control and cybersecurity. The next year, the Kremlin would launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. […]

In 2023, Clinton said that he realized more than a decade ago that Russia planned to ultimately take military action in Ukraine.

“Vladimir Putin told me in 2011—three years before he took Crimea—that he did not agree with the agreement I made with [former Russian President] Boris Yeltsin,” Clinton said, referring to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which saw Russia vow to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity while Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal.

“He said … ‘I don’t agree with it. And I do not support it. And I am not bound by it.’ And I knew from that day forward it was just a matter of time,” Clinton said.

Read more here.