How did Trump and Putin go to past meetings

U.S. President Donald Trump called out several memorable previous meetings on Friday’s sensational moment in world politics with Russian rival Vladimir Putin.

These events tend to bring major news headlines along with some glimpses into an interesting, unpredictable and strict personal relationship between the two leaders.

Recalling the images also gives them clues about how they approached Friday’s face-to-face in Alaska, during which they will discuss the end of the Ukrainian war.

According to former officials, the two bring a very different approach to private meetings, where they deal with either or both leaders behind the closed side.

Their first meeting was held at the G20 summit in Germany in July 2017. Trump has only been in the White House for a few months, while Putin has decades of political experience.

In front of the world’s camera, the two exchanged warm words and a business-like handshake, setting the tone for a relationship of universal respect. Over the next few years, the two continued to express common admiration – although Trump recently told the BBC that he was “disappointed” by Putin’s bloodshed in Ukraine.

In fact, Ukraine grew up at the first meeting when Trump stressed Russia’s efforts to undermine its neighbors. Three years ago, Moscow illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

Fast forward to 2025 – Putin brings Ukraine’s full-scale invasion into its fourth year – Trump is eager to play the role of peacemakers through negotiations for a ceasefire.

Trump said on Wednesday that if Russian leaders disagree to end the war, there will be “very serious consequences.” At other times, he took a softer tone and said he just imagined the meeting as an exercise in “elimination.”

Trump and Putin met again in 2017 at the Economic Forum in Vietnam. They are portrayed as other world leaders chatting, and a snapshot seems to show Putin talking directly into his other’s ears.

According to Russian leaders’ style of the BBC, Trump will be familiar with Putin’s ability to dominate with lengthy, swift statements.

“Everything in all the meetings with Putin involves power,” Sir Laurie Bristow, the British Ambassador to Russia, controlled the timing, matter, agenda, agenda, tone – the point is that you never know what you will get. ”

As a result, Sir Laurie said: “Interpreters will find it difficult to keep up” and from Trump’s point of view, he brought one of his own. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff allegedly relied on Kremlin translation at a meeting earlier this year.

Former Trump aide Fiona Hill agrees with Sir Laurie, recalling her own experience of dealing with Putin in an interview with The Telegraph: “He did make fun of Trump. He uses Russian language in a way that can be ironic and ironic. It’s totally lost in translation.”

The most obvious public display between Trump and Putin was during closed-door negotiations in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2018, when they held a closed-door talks in July 2018.

Trump defended Russia for allegations of interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and supported Putin’s assessment of his intelligence agencies. The move won his cross-party condemnation in the United States.

The Helsinki meeting also produced an unforgettable informal image of Putin giving Trump’s football at the recently held Men’s World Cup by Russia.

Another former British ambassador to Russia, Sir Tony Brenton, said that Putin’s gesture was always carefully calculated. Sir Tony recalls Putin showed “the Old World Courtesy of Russia” during his attendance in the mid-2000s, although “there is always a degree of reservation below and he was never a very spontaneous character.”

He added: “Football and smiles, jokes and this kind of stuff…he is naturally not a ‘hail person, but he thinks it’s important to a relationship when he is really working.”

The couple held a further G20 summit in Argentina in November 2018 and met in Japan in June 2019.

John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, later stood out with him. He told the BBC that he was shocked by the man’s different attitudes toward details, and he trained Putin in Soviet intelligence.

In Putin, he said: “Besides being prepared in his speech, very calm and very reasonable, I think this is part of his KGB training.”

By contrast, Bolton said Trump’s approach to private meetings is similar to his public press conferences because he can easily speak freely and may even surprise his aides. “He wasn’t preparing them for them because he really didn’t think he needed; he didn’t think he needed background information. I’m sure they prepared briefing materials like we always did and he wouldn’t read them.”

Bolton said Trump believes a healthy personal relationship with another leader will mean a healthy state relationship – and Putin knows that. “He will use KGB training to try to manipulate Trump. He has done it before, and he will do it again.”

Trump himself downplayed expectations ahead of Friday’s meeting in Alaska, saying: “I think it’s going to be good. But it could be bad.”