U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive to waiting media during a joint press conference after their summit on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
With President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin scheduled to meet in Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to discuss bringing an end to the war in Ukraine, the optics could be setting the stage for a normalized U.S.-Russia energy collaboration in the Arctic. This concept was previously expressed by Kirill Dmitriev, Russian envoy and head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund. Following the U.S.-Russia summit regarding Ukraine conducted in Riyadh, on Feb. 18 Dmitriev made clear that the Kremlin’s priority is energy development in the Arctic.
While the official purpose of this Alaska meeting involves Ukraine “security issues,” the geography of the Alaska setting and the state’s position in a resource-rich oil, gas and mineral region offers a background narrative to ease sanctions in Russia’s strategic Arctic domain. The bilateral negotiation space that offers diplomatic legitimacy to discuss joint resource development is an opportune moment to discuss joint energy development in the Arctic region.
The meeting appears to be part of Russia’s ongoing hybrid war, with Putin controlling the agenda. Hybrid war is a strategy that uses cyber, economic, legal and political tactics to influence, disrupt or control a civilian population while avoiding open, declared war. As Trump reflects a preference for personal diplomacy over cooperation with alliances, he is susceptible to Putin’s focus on the acquisition of energy resources.
In March, a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was broadcast globally. During the encounter, Trump and Vice President JD Vance demanded expressions of gratitude, while pressuring Zelenskyy to sell critical minerals to the U.S., including resources located in Russian-occupied regions. The exchange revealed a more concerning strategic realignment: one rooted in coercion over cooperation, transactions over treaties, and, promoting the idea of “land swaps,” the subordination of sovereignty to invasion.
Trump’s focus on critical minerals has been codified through executive orders. He directed the secretary of commerce to initiate an investigation, under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, on the national security implications of critical mineral imports. Invoking the Defense Production Act, Trump issued orders accelerating domestic mining and processing, framing mineral extraction, an admittedly decades-long process to implement, as essential to national security.
His strategy, combining executive action at home with coercive negotiations abroad, in locations including Ukraine, Greenland and Canada to resource-rich, unstable regions such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. In a Jan. 20 executive order, Trump reversed environmental protections enacted by the Biden administration, calling them an “assault on Alaskan sovereignty,” calling the largest and northernmost state, a “true energy warehouse.”
Putin’s engagement with Trump has been described as a “calculated interplay of conciliation and coercion,” where Putin maintains strategic control, while Trump secures, mainly, symbolic wins. As Russia escalates hybrid attacks — cyber intrusions, undersea cable disruptions, and disinformation in Europe — it also probes air and sea space, as well as Western defenses along Alaska’s coastline, with its network of forward-operating bases, nuclear icebreakers, air defenses and deepwater ports.
Stars and Stripes has reported ongoing “close encounters” with Russian fighter jets and naval vessels in the Bering Sea, including operations inside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. In 2024, the North American Air Defense Command, or NORAD, and the U.S. Coast Guard tracked four separate incursions by Russian aircraft into Alaska’s Air Defense Identification Zone. Sen. Dan Sullivan warned that “Alaska is on the frontlines of authoritarian aggression.”
The upcoming Alaska meeting, without Ukraine or European allies, could be a prelude to joint ventures in energy production that exemplifies Putin’s hybrid strategy: offers of partnership underpinned by intended dominance. Similarly, Putin seeks dominance over Ukraine with his refusal to accept Ukraine’s membership in NATO or the European Union, leaving Ukraine without security guarantees, potentially setting the stage for a second invasion.
As the emerging world order is being reshaped, in part, by resource control, the three globally dominant partners — Russia, China and the United States — appear to function, as during a century ago, where “might makes right,” by force of will rather than law. In such a system, Alaska risks becoming both a bargaining chip and a political battleground.
Hosting Ukraine talks in the Arctic could offer the possibility for Russian and American cooperation in what Mikhail Gorbachev once called “a zone of peace,” along with the affirmative caution of Gen. Mark Milley that the U.S. must “up its game” in the Arctic. In the meantime, Trump must provide Zelenskyy with the weapons that he needs to drive out Russia and prevent a repeat.
However, to achieve such goals, Alaska and Europe must be more deeply involved.
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