Putin and Trump meet in Alaska
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The world’s media watches as the presidents of Russia and the USA meet in Alaska. Russian officials say they want to discuss broad US-Russian relations, but on Air Force One President Trump said he wanted to focus on Ukraine.
Also on the programme: we hear from an Indian soldier who saw the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and the people trying to crack an unsolved code sitting right outside the CIA’s headquarters.
(IMAGE: Trump and Putin meet in Anchorage, Alaska, 15 August CREDIT: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service live from London. This is Owen Bennett-Jones. |
| 0:09.5 | So the Alaska summit has begun. The two presidents came in their planes, landed quite close to each other. |
| 0:17.8 | Red carpets were rolled out. They walked towards each other, shook hands, |
| 0:22.1 | shared a joke of some kind. It wasn't clear. The microphones didn't pick it up, but President |
| 0:26.0 | Trump said something that President Putin laughed at. Then it was on to a nearby building. |
| 0:32.3 | AIDS were present. There had been talk of this being a one-on-one meeting with translators only, |
| 0:37.3 | but in fact, |
| 0:38.6 | the two teams of senior diplomats and so on were with the presidents. |
| 0:43.8 | And then they batted off some questions, not really answering them at all from journalists, |
| 0:48.4 | and the talks run away. |
| 0:49.8 | So now we wait. |
| 0:51.6 | And one of the men who's not there and has to wait with us is President Zelensky in Kiev. |
| 0:57.9 | He said before these talks began that Russia was still attacking Ukraine in the hours approaching the talks. |
| 1:06.5 | The war continues. It continues precisely because there is no order nor any signals from Moscow that it is preparing to end this war. |
| 1:15.3 | They're also killing on the day of the negotiations. |
| 1:18.5 | Now we'll hear about the Russian ideas about the agenda for this meeting with our correspondents in a moment. |
| 1:25.9 | But let's just hear what President Trump is saying |
| 1:28.2 | that he thinks his summit is about. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on his way to Alaska, |
| 1:33.9 | he was asked about whether this was about ending the war in Ukraine. |
| 1:39.4 | There's nothing set in stone. I want certain things. I want to see a ceasefire. This is not to do with Europe. Europe's not telling me what to do. But they're going to be involved in the process, obviously, as well as Zelensky. But I want to see a ceasefire rapidly. I don't know if it's going to be today, but I'm not going to be happy if it's not today. Everyone said it can't be today, but I'm just saying |
| 2:01.3 | I want the killing to stop. I'm in this to stop the killing. So that's his idea, he says, |
| 2:06.4 | and he's also asked about meeting President Putin face to face. He's a smart guy, been doing it |
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