The meeting between President Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin is taking place in a region rich with significance for Moscow. Once Russian territory, Alaska was sold by Alexander II in 1867 for $7.

In the early hours of Saturday morning following a summit in Alaska between the leaders of Russia and the United States, senior politicians in Moscow were quick to trumpet the meeting as a win for Russia and its narrative of the war in Ukraine.

During his Alaska summit with President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to lay flowers at the graves of Soviet pilots at Fort Richardson — a WWII burial site for airmen who died while training in Alaska to ferry U.

The Trump-Putin summit will take place in a former Russian colony that the United States bought for $7.2 million in 1867. Here’s how the deal came together and why its legacy matters.

Trump will meet Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday as the U.S. leader hopes for a breakthrough in the three-and-a-half-year war, following previous negotiations involving his envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president's rejection of a U.S. ceasefire proposal.