Closing summary
Russian president Vladimir Putin held a meeting with some of the country’s top officials to prepare for the meeting with Trump. Reuters reported that following the meeting, Putin said the US administration was making “sincere efforts” to resolve the Ukraine conflict.
Donald Trump has told Fox News Radio that the second meeting between him and Vladimir Putin would be “very, very important”. The US president has indicated that any future meeting, where a deal would be struck on key details such as territory, would involved the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Kremlin, via the Russian news agency Interfax, has said there are no plans to sign documents on the outcome of the summit, and warned it would be “a big mistake” to predict outcome of the talks, Reuters reported.
US state secretary Marco Rubio said that security guarantees for Ukraine needed to be part of peace talks with Russia, adding he was hopeful of imminent progress towards ending the war, AFP reported. Ahead of the Trump-Putin summit on Friday, Rubio said that “to achieve peace, I think we all recognise that there’ll have to be some conversation about security guarantees.”
The Trump-Putin summit in Alaska presents “a viable chance to make progress as long as Putin takes action to prove he is serious about peace,” Downing Street said in a statement after Starmer’s meeting with Zelenskyy in London.
The heatwave-fuelled wildfires that have killed three people in Spain over recent days, devouring thousands of hectares of land and forcing thousands of people from their homes, are a “clear warning” of the impact of the climate emergency, the country’s environment minister has said.
The deadly fires come as southern Europe suffers intense heat that has broken temperature records across the continent – made worse by fossil fuel pollution that traps sunlight and heats the planet – and which has dried out vegetation.
The EU has said it sees no justification for China to sanction two Lithuanian banks in retaliation against the bloc’s sanctions on two Chinese banks as part of the 18th package of sanctions on Russia. “We don’t believe those countermeasures have any justification and therefore we call on China to remove them now,” said EU spokesperson Olof Gill.
European leaders have praised President Donald Trump for agreeing to allow US military support for a force they are mustering to police any future peace in Ukraine – a move that vastly improves the chances of success for an operation that could prove essential for the country’s security.
The leaders said Trump offered American military backup for the European “reassurance force” during a call they held with him ahead of his planned summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday, AP reported. They did not say what the assistance might involve and Trump himself has not publicly confirmed any support.
The effectiveness of the operation, drawn up by the coalition of about 30 countries supporting Ukraine, hinges on the deterrent effect of US air power or other military equipment that European armed forces do not have, or have only in short supply.
No US troops would be involved, but the threat of American air power, if needed, behind the European force would likely help to dissuade Russian troops from testing Europe’s resolve.
Senior Russian officials have repeatedly rejected the idea of European peacekeepers in Ukraine, even though a traditional UN-style peacekeeping force is not being planned.
