Senator Lindsey Graham silenced critics who criticized President Trump for being willing to meet Vladimir Putin and said Reagan also met Gorbachev to try to end the Cold War. “I’m confident President Trump will walk away – like Reagan – if Putin insists on a bad deal,” he wrote. “Good luck, Mr. President, in your efforts to end this brutal war. The world should be pulling for you. I know I am,” he added. Trump announced Friday that he would meet Putin in Alaska next week to discuss ending the more than three-year-long war in Ukraine. Trump is proposing that the Eastern European nations swap territory in an effort to fast-track a peace deal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not invited to the upcoming summit, has rejected the idea and urged the US to give Kyiv a seat at the table.“You’re looking at territory that’s been fought over for three and a half years, a lot of Russians have died. A lot of Ukrainians have died,” Trump said at the White House on Friday.“It’s very complicated. We’re going to get some back, we’re going to get some switched. There will be some swapping of territories, to the betterment of both.”Russia has confirmed President Vladimir Putin is to meet US counterpart Donald Trump in Alaska next Friday, August 15.Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov described the two countries as “close neighbors, so it is quite logical that the leaders’ summit will take place in Alaska,” Russian state news agency TASS reported. He said the summit would focus on the options for a “long-term resolution to the Ukrainian crisis.”According to US officials, Putin has offered to halt the war in Ukraine in exchange for significant territorial concessions by Kyiv. Putin presented the plan to Trump’s foreign envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Wednesday. It would require Ukraine to cede the eastern Donbas region — the majority of which is currently occupied by Russia — as well as Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
