When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet at the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson in Alaska, it will be their first face-to-face encounter since Osaka, 2019. On paper, the White House is calling it a “listening exercise” to discuss ending the Ukraine war. But there is growing concern that two global heavyweights, neither of them European, could potentially shape the political map of Europe without its own leaders at the table. This is exactly what happened in February 1945, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin gathered in the Crimean resort of Yalta. The war in Europe was nearly over, but the conference’s legacy is complicated: Poland’s borders were redrawn, Eastern Europe fell into the Soviet sphere, and entire nations found their futures decided without representation. n18oc_world n18oc_crux