Hello and welcome to NewsHour live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kesb.

When Donald Trump welcomes Vladimir Putin to Alaska on Friday, he says he'll know within two minutes if he can get a deal to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

What worries many, certainly in Ukraine, but across Europe is what kind of deal?

Mr Trump has spoken of land swaps, but does that mean giving up Ukrainian land to the invading Russian force?

That would be rewarding aggression, according to European leaders who have issued a joint statement

today. More on that later this hour. But barely a week ago, President Trump was threatening

to cripple Russia's economy with new sanctions and secondary sanctions and tariffs on countries

that trade with Russia if President Putin did not declare a ceasefire.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his tough stance and welcomed the economic

pressure on Moscow. But now President Trump is preparing for face-to-face talks with Putin on

US soil and Zelensky is not invited. A week is a long time in politics.

So where are the weaknesses in the Russian economy? Perhaps one indication the system is under strain

is Moscow's increasing reliance on North Korea, first for ammunition, then soldiers, and now it

seems labourers.

Thousands of construction workers from North Korea have been sent to Russia,

but our sole correspondent, Jean McKenzie,

has spoken to six workers who managed to escape,

and they told her they were subjected to slave-like conditions, and most of the money they earned was sent straight to the regime

in Pyongyang.

How did your experience in Russia compare to what you had been expecting?

I was excited to go to Russia to travel abroad and earn money, But once I started working, felt like I was in a labor

camp, a prison without bars. This is a young North Korean man I met back in the spring.

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