Vladimir Putin set foot on U.S. soil for the first time in 10 years on Friday—but don’t try telling President Donald Trump that. In the days leading up to the historic summit between the two world leaders,

Alaska and Crimea remain linked in some ways today, both viewed by some nationalists as historic Russian regions lost by weak leaders – Yeltsin, the first president of independent Russia, is reviled for recognizing Crimea as part of Ukraine after the USSR collapsed.

United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine. On Wednesday, following a virtual meeting with European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,

Russia's decision to sell Alaska was influenced by its financial struggles following the Crimean War and the desire to strengthen ties with the United States, a fellow rival of Great Britain. Selling Alaska provided Russia with much-needed cash and ensured that Britain would not gain control of the territory.

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.

The act of meeting and the nature of the interaction were such that the summit did considerable damage to the U.S. and broader western position on 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.

Provincetown and the Bearing Sea coastal village of Mertarvik are just about as far away as two places can be in the United States. But students in both communities have found one big piece of common ground — growing up in a rapidly changing climate.