In mid-August 2025, a rumor spread online that U.S. President Donald Trump planned to offer Alaska's natural resources to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as part of a potential deal to end that country's war in Ukraine.
Claims about the purported proposal spread on X, Threads and Reddit.
It is accurate to say The Telegraph, considered a paper of record in the United Kingdom, reported (archived) on Aug. 13, 2025, that the U.S. government planned to offer "Alaska's natural resources to Moscow" during the two leaders' Aug. 15 meeting to help expedite a ceasefire deal in Ukraine.
However, given that The Telegraph did not reveal the sources behind its report, as of this writing, we cannot verify or rate this claim.
The White House did not immediately return an inquiry requesting confirmation of The Telegraph's report. The Telegraph's journalists on the story, Connor Stringer and Joe Barnes, also did not immediately respond to questions about the sourcing behind their report.
Here's what we know.
The Telegraph report
Several claims suggested that Trump planned to offer Alaska's rare minerals to Russia. However, these claims appeared to conflate The Telegraph's reporting that the U.S. government has prepared multiple possible deals for Putin to move him toward a ceasefire, including offering Alaska's natural resources and Ukraine's rare earth minerals.
The Telegraph's report suggested that the "natural resources" Russia might gain access to in Alaska would be oil and gas reserves, not necessarily rare minerals.
Here's the relevant portions of The Telegraph story (emphasis ours):
Donald Trump is preparing to offer Vladimir Putin access to rare earth minerals to incentivise him to end the war in Ukraine.
The US president will arrive at the much-anticipated meeting with his Russian counterpart on Friday armed with a number of money-making opportunities for Putin.
They will include opening up Alaska's natural resources to Moscow and lifting some of the American sanctions on Russia's aviation industry, The Telegraph can reveal.
Proposals include giving Putin access to the rare earth minerals in the Ukrainian territories currently occupied by Russia.
Mr Trump is also considering offering Russia opportunities to tap into the valuable natural resources in the strait that separates it from the US. Alaska, separated from Russia by just three miles of the Bering Strait, is estimated to hold significant undiscovered oil and gas reserves, including 13 per cent of the world's oil.
Ukraine has a wealth of rare earth minerals, including titanium, lithium, graphite and uranium; a large portion of these resources, as of this writing, lies within Russian-occupied territory. The defense and technology industries use these materials for everything from smartphones to batteries. In May, the United States signed a deal with Ukraine to give Washington access to some of the country's natural resources, including 55 types of minerals, with the option to agree to more kinds (see Page 10).
A White House official reportedly told The Telegraph that the U.S. government does not "comment on deliberative conversations that may or may not be happening."
"From the beginning, the president has been clear about his commitment to ending the bloodshed and achieving a full and comprehensive ceasefire," the official said.
A reporter also asked Trump on Aug. 14 if he planned to offer rare minerals — presumably Ukrainian — to Russia as an incentive to end the war. In response, he said: "We're going to see what happens with our meeting."