Diplomatic sources say the upcoming meeting between President Donald Trump and the Russian side in Anchorage will include discussions on guarantees from the United States and other Western countries of non-interference in Russia’s internal affairs as part of broader peace initiatives.
According to the sources, Moscow views the special military operation in Ukraine as a demonstration of its international agency and its determination to block Western influence over domestic politics. The Russian side intends to demand that the West cease funding opposition groups and refrain from meddling in Russia’s internal political processes.
The Kremlin believes Trump’s position on this question is broadly aligned with its own, the sources said. Moscow’s objective is to extend this principle across the entire “Western world.” In practice, that would mean ensuring the government’s “full sovereignty” during a political transition period, lifting sanctions and criminal prosecutions against members of the elite, and halting public criticism in Western media.
For Russia, a key condition for revisiting its stance on sanctions is the recognition of Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. The sources note that the peninsula’s 2014 annexation served as the basis for most of the current restrictive measures.
Moscow also plans to discuss with Trump the removal of sanctions imposed in connection with the crackdown on the opposition and constitutional amendments. The Kremlin hopes a Republican administration could secure a bipartisan consensus and enshrine a policy of non-interference in Russia’s affairs as a baseline for all Western states—though it considers such an outcome unlikely, for now, with the EU and the UK.
Russian officials are already portraying the Alaska summit as a victory for Russia in its global military and economic confrontation with the “collective West.” Andrei Klimov, head of the Federation Council’s Commission on the Protection of State Sovereignty and the Prevention of Interference in Internal Affairs, has said the talks will address not only the conflict in Ukraine but also broader issues comparable in scope to the 1945 Yalta decisions.
The Kremlin would like to achieve a “new Yalta,” but that is closer to aspiration than reality, a Moscow-based political analyst argues. While the “new Yalta” theme could become a central narrative of the post-war period, it is far more likely to yield not a grand geopolitical bargain but merely a confirmation of the status quo for Russia’s existing political regime.
