The US and Russia have agreed to hold a meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on Friday 15 August, to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump announced the meeting a week beforehand - the same day as his deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face more US sanctions.

Three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine held at Trump's behest this summer have yet to bring the two sides any closer to peace.

Here is what we know about the meeting between the two leaders, taking place in Alaska - which was once Russian territory - in Anchorage.

Why are they meeting in Alaska?

The US purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, lending a historical resonance to the meeting. It became a US state in 1959.

Russian presidential assistant Yuri Ushakov pointed out that the two countries are neighbours, with only the Bering Strait separating them.

"It seems quite logical for our delegation simply to fly over the Bering Strait and for such an important and anticipated summit of the leaders of the two countries to be held in Alaska," Ushakov said.

The last time Alaska took centre-stage in an American diplomatic event was in March 2021, when Joe Biden's newly minted diplomatic and national security team met their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage.

The sit-down turned acrimonious, with the Chinese accusing the Americans of "condescension and hypocrisy".

Where in Alaska will Trump and Putin meet?

The meeting will be in Anchorage, the White House confirmed on Tuesday.

When announcing the bilateral, Trump said the location would be "a very popular one for a number of reasons", without disclosing it would be in the state's largest city.

The pair will be hosted at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, the largest military installation in Alaska. The 64,000 acre base is a key US site for Arctic military readiness.

Why are Putin and Trump meeting?

Trump has been pushing hard - without much success - to end the war in Ukraine.

As a presidential candidate, he pledged that he could end the war within 24 hours of taking office. He has also repeatedly argued that the war "never would have happened" if he had been president at the time of Russia's invasion in 2022.

Last month, Trump told the BBC that he was "disappointed" by Putin.

Frustrations grew and Trump set an 8 August deadline for Putin to agree to an immediate ceasefire or face more severe US sanctions.

As the deadline hit, Trump instead announced he and Putin would meet in person on 15 August.

The meeting comes after US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff held "highly productive" talks with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, according to Trump.

Ahead of the meeting, the White House sought to play down speculation that the bilateral could yield a ceasefire.

"This is a listening exercise for the president," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. She added that Trump may travel to Russia following the Alaska trip.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said he viewed the summit as a "feel-out meeting" aimed at urging Putin to end the war.

• Trump says he will try to get back territory for Ukraine in talks with Putin
• Zelensky could still join Trump and Putin, but rest of Europe is shut out

Is Ukraine attending?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not expected to attend. Trump said on Monday: "I would say he could go, but he's been to a lot of meetings."

Trump did, however, say that Zelensky would be the first person he would call afterwards.

A White House official later said that Trump and Zelensky would meet virtually on Wednesday, ahead of the US president's summit with Putin. The Zelensky meeting will be joined by several European leaders.

Putin had requested that Zelensky be excluded, although the White House has previously said that Trump was willing to hold a trilateral in which all three leaders were present.

Zelensky has said any agreements without input from Ukraine would amount to "dead decisions".

What do both sides hope to get out of it?

While both Russia and Ukraine have long said that they want the war to end, both countries want things that the other harshly opposes.

Trump said on Monday he was "going to try to get some of that [Russian-occupied] territory back for Ukraine". But he also warned that there might have to be "some swapping, changes in land".

Ukraine, however, has been adamant that it will not accept Russian control of regions that Moscow has seized, including Crimea.

Zelensky pushed back this week against any idea of "swapping" territories.

"We will not reward Russia for what it has perpetrated," the Ukrainian president said.

Meanwhile, Putin has not budged from his territorial demands, Ukraine's neutrality and the future size of its army.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in part, over Putin's belief the Western defensive alliance, Nato, was using the neighbouring country to gain a foothold to bring its troops closer to Russia's borders.

The Trump administration has been attempting to sway European leaders on a ceasefire deal that would hand over swathes of Ukrainian territory to Russia, the BBC's US partner CBS News has reported.

The agreement would allow Russia to keep control of the Crimean peninsula, and take the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which is made up of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Russia illegally occupied Crimea in 2014 and its forces control the majority of the Donbas region.

Under the deal, Russia would have to give up the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where it currently has some military control.

Speaking to Fox News, US Vice-President JD Vance said any future deal was "not going to make anybody super happy".

"You've got to make peace here… you can't finger point," he said.

"The way to peace is to have a decisive leader to sit down and force people to come together."

• ANALYSIS: Why Trump-Putin relationship has soured
• EXPLAINER: Why did Putin's Russia invade Ukraine?
• VISUALS: Tracking the war in maps
• GLOBAL FALLOUT: How the global economy could be impacted
• VERIFY: Russian attacks on Ukraine double since Trump inauguration
• GROUND REPORT: On Ukraine's front line, twisted wreckage shows sanctions haven't yet stopped Russia

Thousands of Afghans brought to safety in the UK have had their personal data exposed, after a Ministry of Defence (MoD) sub-contractor suffered a data breach.

The names, passport information and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) details of up to 3,700 Afghans have potentially been compromised after Inflite The Jet Centre, which provides ground-handling services for flights at London Stansted airport, suffered a cyber-security incident.

It comes just a month after it was a revealed another major data breach in 2022 revealed the details of almost 19,000 people who had asked to come to the UK in order to flee the Taliban.

The government said the incident "has not posed any threat to individuals' safety, nor compromised any government systems".

There is currently no evidence to suggest that any data has been released publicly.

The Afghans affected are believed to have travelled to the UK between January and March 2024, under a resettlement scheme for those who worked with British troops.

An email sent out by the Afghan resettlement team on Friday afternoon warned their families that personal information may have been exposed.

"This may include passport details (including name, date of birth, and passport number) and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) reference numbers," it said.

Those affected also include British military personnel and former Conservative government ministers, the BBC understands.

A government spokesperson said: "We were recently notified that a third party sub-contractor to a supplier experienced a cyber security incident involving unauthorised access to a small number of its emails that contained basic personal information.

"We take data security extremely seriously and are going above and beyond our legal duties in informing all potentially affected individuals."

Inflite The Jet Centre said in a statement it believes "the scope of the incident was limited to email accounts only" and has reported it to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

The BBC has contacted the ICO for comment.

The incident follows a February 2022 incident in which the personal data of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied to move to the UK under the Arap scheme was mistakenly leaked by a British official, leading to thousands of Afghans being secretly relocated to the UK.

The leaked spreadsheet contained the names, contact details and some family information of the people potentially at risk of harm from the Taliban.

That incident was made public for the first time in July.

At least 164 people have died in the last 24 hours in heavy monsoon floods and landslides in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Most of the deaths, 150, were recorded by disaster authorities in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in northern Pakistan. At least 30 homes were destroyed and a rescue helicopter has also crashed during operations, killing its five crew.

Nine more people were killed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while five died in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, it said.

Government forecasters said heavy rainfall was expected until 21 August and there is a heavy rain alert for the northwest of the country. Several regions have been declared disaster zones.

The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ali Amin Gadapur, said that the M-17 helicopter crashed due to bad weather while flying to Bajaur, a region bordering Afghanistan .

In Bajaur, a crowd amassed around an excavator trawling a mud-soaked hill, AFP photos showed. Funeral prayers began in a paddock nearby, with people grieving in front of several bodies covered by blankets.

In the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, rescuers pulled bodies from mud and rubble on Friday after a flood crashed through a Himalayan village, killing at least 60 people and washing away dozens more.

Monsoon rains between June and September deliver about three-quarters of South Asia's annual rainfall. Landslides and flooding are common and than 300 people have died in this year's season.

In July, Punjab, home to nearly half of Pakistan's 255 million people, recorded 73% more rainfall than the previous year and more deaths than in the entire previous monsoon.

Scientists say that climate change has made weather events more extreme and more frequent.

This is the moment US President Trump and Russia's President Putin simultaneously disembarked their planes in Alaska to meet for talks about the Ukraine war.

They shook hands on a red carpet and had what appeared to be a friendly but animated conversation before walking together to a nearby car.

Ukraine's President Zelensky, who is not invited to the summit, says his country is "counting on America" and there's "no indication" Russia is preparing to end the war.

Speculation has swirled over whether the Trump-Putin summit will result in the map of Ukraine being forcibly – and fundamentally – altered.

Russia has laid claim to vast parts of Ukraine since 2014, when President Vladimir Putin made his first move.

At the time, in the space of a short few months, Moscow carried out the relatively bloodless occupation and annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

But that was followed by a Russian-backed separatist movement in the eastern Donbas region – specifically the two regions, or "oblasts", known as Donetsk and Luhansk.

A war simmered there for eight years.

Ukraine lost around 14,000 soldiers and civilians during this period.

But in February 2022, Putin launched his full-scale invasion. Russian troops quickly reached the outskirts of Kyiv and seized huge swathes of the south, including big chunks of two more oblasts, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

The war has ebbed and flowed ever since. Russia now controls rather less territory - down from about 27% in the spring of 2022 to around 20% now. In the east, Russian forces are advancing, but very slowly and at great cost.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine says an unconditional ceasefire is needed now. European allies also insist on on a halt in fighting. US President Donald Trump says that is what he has been trying to achieve.

But in the run-up to his Alaska summit with Putin, Trump has started talking, instead about territorial swaps. That has sent shockwaves across Kyiv and Europe.

It is not at all clear what land Trump is referring to, or what those swaps could look like, given that all the territory in question legally belongs to Ukraine.

As of August 2025, the territory of Ukraine looks as follows:

Russia would dearly love to expand its control over the entirety of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Some reports suggest that Putin is demanding that Ukraine hand over the remaining territory it controls in both oblasts.

But that would mean Kyiv giving up on places which tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died trying to protect - cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, and a fortified line protecting Ukrainian territory to the north and west.

For Kyiv, such a concession would be a bitter pill to swallow. For Moscow, whose losses have been even more catastrophic, it would be seen as victory.

Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine "could not" leave the Donbas as Moscow would use the region as a springboard to attack the rest of the country.

In recent days, Russian forces appear to be pushing hard, and making progress, near the town of Dobropillya. But it's not yet clear whether this marks a significant strategic move or just an effort to show Trump that Moscow has the upper hand.

What about Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, captured in 2022?

Here, it's reported, Russia is offering to halt its offensive and freeze the lines.

But would Russia be prepared to give any of it back?

On Monday, Trump talked vaguely about "ocean-front property" – presumably a reference to some of this shoreline, along the Sea of Azov or Black Sea.

But this is all part of Putin's strategically vital land bridge connecting Russia to occupied Crimea.

It's hard to see the Russian leader agreeing to give any of it up. Like Donetsk and Luhansk, Putin regards these places as part of Russia, and illegally annexed them three years ago in four referendums widely regarded as a sham.

For Ukraine, and Europe, territorial swaps – at this very early stage of the talks – are a non-starter.

A discussion about future borders may eventually come, but only when the war has stopped and Ukraine's security has been guaranteed.

Five thousand miles from Alaska, and feeling left out, Ukrainians were bracing themselves on Friday for the outcome of negotiations to which they were not invited.

The talks, between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, will begin later in the day with no seat for the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump signalled earlier this week that "land swaps" could be on the table - largely interpreted to mean the surrender of Ukrainian land to Russia.

In Ukraine, where polls consistently show that about 95% of the population distrusts Putin, there is a uneasy mix of deep scepticism about the talks and deep fatigue with the war.

• Live updates as Trump and Putin meet in Alaska
• What do Alaskans make of the geopolitical circus arriving in their city?
• The war-ravaged Ukrainian territories at the heart of the Trump-Putin summit

"This question touches me directly," said Tetyana Bessonova, 30, from Pokrovsk - one of the eastern cities whose future is in question if land were surrendered to Russia.

"My hometown is on the line of fire. If active fighting stops, would I be able to return?" she said.

Questions of negotiations, of land swaps, of the redrawing of boundaries were deeply painful to those who grew up in the affected regions, Bessonova said.

"This is the place I was born, my homeland," she said. "These decisions might mean I could never go home again. That I and many others will lose all hope of return."

The French President, Emmanuel Macron, said on Wednesday that Trump had agreed on a call with European leaders that no territorial concessions would be made without Ukraine's approval. And Trump has said he intends to hold a second summit with Zelensky present, before anything is agreed.

But Trump can be unpredictable. He is often said to favour the views of the person he spoke to most recently. So there is little faith in Ukraine that he won't be swayed by Putin, particularly in a one-on-one meeting.

The very fact of the closed door meeting was bad for Ukraine, said Oleksandr Merezhko, a Ukrainian MP and chair of the country's parliamentary committee on foreign affairs. "Knowing Trump, he can change his opinion very quickly. There is great danger in that for us."

Merezhko said he feared that, such was Trump's desire to be seen as a dealmaker, he may have privately made advance agreements with the Russians. "Trump doesn't want embarrassment, and if nothing is achieved, he will be embarrassed," the MP said. "The question is, what could be in those agreements?"

Various possibilities have been suggested for arrangements that could lead to a ceasefire, from a freezing of the current frontlines - with no formal recognition of the seized territory as Russian - to a maximalist position of Russia annexing four entire regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Polls suggest that about 54% of Ukrainians support some form of land compromise in order to hasten the end of the war, but only with security guarantees from Ukraine's international partners. So deep and widespread is the distrust of Russia, that many believe an agreement to freeze the frontlines without security guarantees would simply be an invitation to Russia to rest, rearm, and reattack.

"If we freeze the frontlines and cede territories it will only serve as a platform for a new offensive," said Volodymyr, a Ukrainian sniper serving in the east of the country. In accordance with military protocol, he asked to be identified only by his first name.

"Many soldiers gave their lives for these territories, for the protection of our country," Volodymyr said. "A freeze would mean demobilization would begin, wounded and exhausted soldiers would be discharged, the army would shrink, and during one of these rotations the Russians would strike again. But this time, it would be the end of our country."

Across Ukraine, people from all walks of life were making very tough decisions about the reality of their future, said Anton Grushetsky, the director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, which regularly polls the population about the war.

One of the toughest decisions was whether to accept the idea of giving de facto control of some Ukrainian soil to Russia, he said. "It's 20% of our land and these are our people. But Ukrainians are showing us that they are flexible, they are telling us that they will accept various forms of security guarantees."

According to the institute's polling, 75% of Ukrainians are totally opposed to giving Russia formal ownership of any territory. Among the remaining 25%, there were some people who were pro-Russian, Grushetsky said, and some who were simply so fatigued by the war that they felt hard compromises were necessary.

"My belief is that the war should be stopped in any way possible," said Luibov Nazarenko, 70, a retired factory worker from Donetsk region, in Ukraine's east.

"The further it goes, the worse it becomes," she said. "The Russians have already occupied the Kherson region and they want Odesa. All this must be stopped, so the youth do not die."

Nazarenko has a son who is not yet fighting but could be called up. She said she believed that three years into the war, with hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded on the Ukrainian side alone, the preservation of life superseded all concerns over land.

"I just don't want people to die," she said. "Not the youth, not the old people, not the civilians who live on the frontline."

On Friday, as the clock ticked down to the beginning of the talks in Alaska, Ukrainians were celebrating a holy day - the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is the day when she is believed to listen to the prayers of all who need her.

At St Michael's Monastery, a church in central Kyiv, priest Oleksandr Beskrovniy was leading a prayer service for several dozen people. Afterwards, he said it was hard to find words to describe the unfairness of the coming talks, but called it a "great injustice and madness" to leave Zelensky out.

Like others, the priest recognised the grim reality facing Ukraine, he said - that it was not in a position to recapture its stolen territory by force. So some deal needed to be made. But it should be thought of less in terms of land, Beskrovniy said, and more in terms of people.

"If we are forced to cede territory - if the world allows this - the most important thing is that we gather all of our people. The world must help us get our people out."

In his prayers on Friday, the priest did not refer directly to the talks in Alaska, he said - "no names or places of meetings".

But he prayed for the future strength of Ukraine, he said. "On the frontline, and in the diplomatic space."

"Putin is supposed to be in jail, and he just comes to Alaska like that."

Hanna Correa is amongst a sea of Alaskans waving Ukrainian flags on road leading into the capital city, Anchorage.

"When I entered through that parking lot, and I see a lot of Americans, they're supporting, it made me cry," she says.

Ms Correa, 40, left Ukraine in 2019 for love, and six years later, the future of her country could be decided in her adopted home town.

US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to touch down at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a 30 minute drive away. Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky is not invited, something Ms Correa says is "pretty sad".

Among those protesting their arrival is Christopher Kelliher, a 53-year-old military veteran and Alaskan native.

"It's gross, it makes you want to take a shower," he says of the meeting.

"Putin doesn't need to be in our state, much less our country. We have an idiot in the White House that will kowtow to this guy."

• Follow live coverage of the meeting here
• Left out of Alaska talks, exhausted Ukrainians fear an unjust peace

This region's history with Moscow gives Friday's summit added significance. The US purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1867 for $7.2m (£1.48m).

Critics called the purchase 'Seward's Folly', arguing the land amounted to a frozen wasteland. But later discoveries of rare earth minerals and abundant oil and gas put paid to that label.

Ornate churches are among the most visible symbols of Alaska's Russian heritage. The St Tikhon Orthodox Church in Anchorage has been holding three days of prayer ahead of leaders' arrival.

Priest Nicholas Cragle, an American who recently moved to Alaska after living in Russia for seven years, says the conflict is "particularly painful and close to the hearts" of parishioners.

"We're hoping that this meeting will lead to something... lead to a culmination of this conflict," says Mr Cragle.

That feeling is shared by fishermen ankle-deep in creek bed on the outskirts of town, drawn to the area by the allure of some of the world's finest salmon.

"I think it's a good idea [the summit], I wish Zelensky would be out here too... get this thing over with," says Don Cressley, who lives in the Alaskan city of North Pole and is visiting on a fishing trip with his grandson.

He wants an end to the war "because of the destruction they're doing to all the cities, all the buildings, making everybody more homeless, taking their foods away, their supplies away, their living right away,".

Donald Trump, he says, is doing an "awesome job" in ceasefire negotiations.

While the US president often talks warmly of his relationship with Vladimir Putin, superpower tensions persist and are more keenly felt here.

Moscow's military planes are routinely detected flying near the coast of Alaska. And in January, Canadian and American fighter jets were scrambled after multiple Russian jets were spotted in the Arctic, according to the North American Aerospace Defence Command.

That breeds a sense of unease for some Alaskans who live closer to Russia than Washington DC.

"Although the Cold War is over between Russia and the US, they're constantly patrolling our airways," Anchorage resident Russell Wilson tells me while fishing.

"If the president doesn't put the hammer down, we could be the next Ukraine."

However other Alaskans consider a return to Cold War hostilities are far-fetched fantasy.

I ask Army veteran Christopher Kelliher if he is concerned about a Russian invasion. "Not really, everybody in Alaska owns a gun," he replies.

At least one person has died and several others injured after a train collided with a slurry tanker and derailed in southern Denmark, officials said.

Police said the crash happened between the towns of Tinglev and Kliplev in southern Jutland, and that officers were at the site.

Local outlet TV2 reported helicopters had been sent to the scene and quoted local rail officials as saying the train had "hit a slurry tanker" at a level crossing.

The country's rail operator DSB said that it had shut down services between Tinglev and Sønderborg near the German border.

Pictures from the scene showed a carriage lying on its side, with passengers stood around the train tracks.

Police said 95 passengers were on board, including pupils from a school in Sønderborg. Two of the injured were carried away by helicopter.

The national rail agency Banedanmark wrote on X that the collision happened at a railway crossing. According to local media, at least two of the train carriages were derailed.