Putin seeks arms control treaty following Trump summit

Bloomberg News on Aug 14, 2025

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Russia and the U.S. can start work on a new arms control treaty after Friday’s summit in Alaska, said President Vladimir Putin ahead of his meeting with Donald Trump, as senior Kremlin officials voice interest in restoring economic ties.

An agreement on the control of strategic offensive weapons could “create long-term conditions of peace,” Putin said at a meeting with senior Russian officials on Thursday.

Putin also praised the U.S. for making “quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the fighting.”

The Russian leader’s compliments to his U.S. counterpart come after Trump warned Moscow that he would impose “very severe consequences” if Putin didn’t agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine at the leaders’ meeting later this week.

European allies have expressed concern that the U.S. president — who has said an eventual deal would include territorial exchanges — could unilaterally agree to peace terms proposed by Putin that would disadvantage Ukraine and undermine the continent’s security.

Moscow is demanding that Ukraine cede its entire eastern Donbas region as well as Crimea, which Putin’s forces illegally annexed in 2014, as a condition to unlock a ceasefire and enter negotiations over a lasting settlement, Bloomberg previously reported.

Following a call with European leaders, Trump said he hoped to use the Friday summit with Putin to set up a “quick second meeting” with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Putin’s words on arms control come after Moscow’s statement earlier this month that Russia no longer considers itself bound by a moratorium on the deployment of ground-based intermediate and short-range missiles.

The Russian leader also said in December that he plans to deploy his country’s Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile in Belarus, which borders several members of NATO, in the second half of 2025.

“Putin’s aim is to divorce the issue of the war from bilateral relations including strategic and economic ones”, said Alexander Kolyandr, a London-based senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and former strategist at Credit Suisse.

“The topic of business, energy and financial sanctions seems to be equally if not more important for Putin,” Kolyandr told Bloomberg News in a phone call.

Back to business

While the talks in Alaska are formally focused on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, Trump and Putin will also discuss bilateral economic cooperation, Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Thursday according to Russian newswires.

On Thursday Ushakov, who will accompany the Russian president to Alaska, announced the members of Moscow’s delegation.

Alongside foreign affairs and defense ministers, it will also include Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s representative for international investment and economic cooperation — a lineup which suggests the parties may also discuss potential business ventures following the top-level talks.

The two presidents will hold a joint news conference after their meeting, the Kremlin said.