President Donald Trump has often bragged about his warm relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. But in the months leading up to the leaders’ first meeting in six years, Trump began asking Europeans and White House aides what’s changed about his counterpart.

President Donald Trump’s meeting in Alaska with Vladimir Putin could be a decisive moment in the war in Ukraine and in the U.S. leader’s anomalous relationship with his Russian counterpart.

P resident Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are slated to meet for a highly anticipated one-on-one in Alaska on Friday, Aug. 15 in a rare bilateral meeting on American soil at a time of heightened tensions.