AKP Phnom Penh, August 18, 2025 —

 The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Alaska reaffirmed Washington’s interest in joint development of Arctic territories with Russia, according to Professor Alexey Fadeyev of the Higher School of Industrial Management at Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, who spoke to TASS.

"Arctic cooperation was an anticipated topic on the leaders’ agenda, once again highlighting shared interests," Fadeyev noted. "Both Russia and the United States are invested in the energy sector, military-industrial complex, biological resource extraction, aquaculture, and transportation development in the Arctic region. The possibility of revitalizing interregional contacts - particularly between the Russian Far East and the US West Coast was also emphasized."

The expert further explained that Russian ports in the Far East, coupled with the development of the Transarctic Transport Corridor and the Northern Sea Route, could serve as vital economic gateways - not only to the Asia-Pacific markets but also to the United States.

"The establishment of the Transarctic Corridor could act as a catalyst for economic ties between Russia and the US," Fadeyev said. "A broad range of goods - from consumer products and IT equipment to automobiles - could flow east-west. Considering the potential linking of the Northern Sea Route and the Transarctic Corridor to the North-South route, there’s also the prospect of reverse transportation toward Middle Eastern and Indian Ocean countries."

He highlighted that by 2035, approximately 19.5 trillion rubles are likely to be invested in projects related directly or indirectly to the Northern Sea Route. The tax revenues generated from these initiatives may well surpass 21 trillion rubles. Fadeyev concluded, "I anticipate that the development of these agreements will leverage the Arctic’s economic advantages and the strategic position of the Russian Far East."

Russian-US summit
On August 15, Putin and Trump met at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Alaska. Their talks lasted approximately three hours, including a one-on-one session in the American leader’s limousine en route to the main negotiation venue, as well as a subsequent small-group discussion involving three participants on either side. The Russian delegation included presidential aide Yury Ushakov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while the American side was represented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff.

In a statement to the media following the talks, Putin said that the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict was the main topic of the summit. The Russian leader also called for turning the page in bilateral relations and resuming cooperation and invited Trump to Moscow. For his part, Trump announced progress in the talks, but noted that the parties had not managed to reach agreement on everything.

AKP-TASS