Human Rights First Says Alaska Summit Must Deliver Justice, Not Impunity

Washington D.C. — The Alaska summit this Friday between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin must not sideline human rights or justice for victims of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“Any deal that lets Russia off the hook for war crimes is not peace—it’s a green light for the next massacre,” said Brian Dooley, Senior Advisor at Human Rights First. “This meeting looks less like a serious attempt at reaching a just settlement and more like two Nineteenth Century European monarchs carving up foreign land and resources.”

Russian forces are still killing civilians—striking Kherson and Zaporizhia over the weekend—as the war continues into its twelfth year. Putin has been subject to an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court since March 2023 for alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine. His visit to the United States will presumably require a waiving of the entry ban imposed on him through U.S. sanctions in February 2022.

Human Rights First has made 20 research trips to the eastern front of Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, documenting war crimes and evacuating civilians from communities under fire.

“Every time Russia’s crimes have gone unpunished—in Crimea in 2014, in Donbas shortly after, and after the full-scale invasion in 2022—the violence has escalated. Alaska must not deliver another round of impunity,” said Dooley.

Human Rights First says that survivors and Ukraine’s civil society must be at the heart of the negotiations. A peace deal that sidelines them will not hold.