President Donald Trump’s posture toward President Vladimir Putin of Russia over the last two decades or so has veered from admiring to infuriated, cozy to detached. The latest meeting was at least their seventh known face-to-face encounter, and the first of Trump’s second term. Here’s a look at some of the past meetings, and what the two have said about each other over the years:The Early YearsIn 2007, after Time magazine selected Putin as its “Man of the Year,” Trump wrote him a congratulatory letter. “As you probably have heard, I’m a big fan of yours!” Trump wrote. Six years later, Trump took the Miss Universe contest to Moscow. Months before the pageant, which he owned at the time, he wondered on social media if Putin would attend, and if so, “will he become my new best friend?” Putin did not attend.2016 Presidential CampaignSoon after he formally announced a run for the White House in 2015, Trump told reporters in July that he would “get along very well with Vladimir Putin.” The exchange of compliments continued that year, when Putin called Trump “a very bright and talented man,” and Trump said that praise was a “great honour.”In July 2016, though, Trump seemed to backtrack after saying repeatedly for years that he had a relationship with Putin. “He said one nice thing about me. He said I’m a genius. I said thank you very much to the newspaper and that was the end of it. I never met Putin,” he said. During the final presidential debate in 2016, Hillary Clinton suggested that he would be Putin’s “puppet,” which Trump dismissed. But questions over Trump’s ties to Russia did not go away, and after he took office in Jan 2017, Russia’s role in the US election dominated conversation in the US.The First MeetingsThe first in-person meeting between the two leaders took place at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, where Trump asked Putin about Russian interference in the election. Putin denied any involvement. After the meeting, Trump took his interpreter’s notes and instructed him not to brief anyone.They met again in Nov that year, in Vietnam, and in July 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. On both occasions, Putin denied interfering in the 2016 election. In Helsinki, Trump stood beside Putin and challenged the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies about Russian election interference. Later in 2018, the two leaders spoke informally at dinner during a G20 meeting in Argentina.They met once more before the end of the first Trump term, at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in June 2019. By then, the special counsel Robert Mueller had concluded that Russian had carried out a “sweeping and systematic” attack on American democracy. Asked by a reporter whether he would tell Russia not to meddle in US elections, Trump said, “Yes, of course, I will.” He then turned to Putin, with a half-grin, and said, “Don’t meddle in the election, President,” as Putin chuckled.Trump’s Second TermAs he began his second term, Trump expressed an interest in swiftly bringing an end to the war in Ukraine. But his relationship with President Zelensky of Ukraine took a nosedive in Feb after a fiery confrontation at the White House. Trump began to indicate frustration with Putin as the war proved harder to end than he had expected. “I’m not happy with Putin,” Trump said in July. He appeared to soften his comments ahead of the meeting in Alaska, saying he “got along well” with Putin.
