Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy explained to Newsweek what he saw as the geopolitical significance of the high-stakes meeting being in his state.

But beyond making the U.S. and Russia neighbors, Alaska has been the site of both cooperation and conflict between the two nations beginning, in part, with the purchase of the 49th state from the Russian empire.

The talks on Friday in Alaska pull the Russian leader out of diplomatic isolation from the West, and Ukrainian and European leaders fear it gives him an opening to sway the American president.