When Russian President Vladimir Putin touches down in Alaska on Friday to discuss ending the war in Ukraine with U.S. President Donald Trump , he’ll be landing in a former Russian colony that still carries deep historic ties to his homeland.

The “Frontier State” is geographically the closest point between the U.S. and Russia, divided by the Bering Strait and resting just 55 miles away from the European country. 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 symbolism of Alaska would be a reminder of how it was possible for the United States and Russia for most of the 19th century to transcend their ideological and

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