Alaska awaits Trump and Putin - can their meeting deliver peace?
By ITV News US Correspondent Dan Rivers and Washington News Editor Jonathan Wald
When Vladimir Putin arrives in Alaska, he can be forgiven for feeling at home.
This isn't just the most Russian corner of the United States; Alaska was actually Russian territory, until the Tsar sold it to America in 1867 for $7.2 million, which would now be $156 million.
The vestiges of that Slavic heritage endure to this day. At the St Innocent Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Anchorage, a small congregation of around 40 people gathered this week to hear prayers for peace.
The war in Ukraine is foremost in the mind of Father Thomas Rivas, who visited Moscow after the war started and was appalled by the stories of injuries and death told by families of servicemen on the frontline.
He wants to stay out of politics, but tells his churchgoers ending the war is not a political matter, it is simply about 'ending the suffering'.
Across the city Yuliia Maiba is a Ukrainian refugee who also wants to see an end to the fighting. Her parents and 83-year-old grandmother are still living near the frontline in Kostiantynivka in the far eastern province of Donetsk.
Yuliia fled to Anchorage because she had been a teenage exchange student here before the war, and her host family offered her refuge.
Now she is uncertain whether her immigration status will be renewed at the end of the year and spends every day scanning social media posts for news from her family's hometown.
The one thing she is certain of is she is not returning home - she can't. Her home has been razed to the ground and most of her town has been destroyed.
She described the possibility of ceding territory around Donetsk to Russia as 'very unfair' but after nearly 4 years of war she says she would tolerate it if it led to peace.
Yuliia, and the rest of the Ukrainian community here, will be watching this summit closely, nervously. Only 55 miles separates Russia and America in this remote state, but on Friday Donald Trump will attempt to bridge the divide with a handshake.
However unlikely it is that their meeting will produce a lasting peace and however great the risk that it will lead to excruciating compromises for people like Yuliia, it is better than the alternative, which is war without end.
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