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

In less than 24 hours, President Trump and Putin will take part in an historic summit in Alaska,

beginning with a breakfast meeting, we're told. Mr Putin doesn't leave Russia very often.

There are 124 countries in the world

where border officials would be obliged to arrest him if he arrived there. Those are countries

that are signatories to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The ICC has an arrest

warrant out on Vladimir Putin. It alleges that there are reasonable grounds to believe

Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the unlawful deportation of children from

Ukraine to Russia. That would be a war crime. We'll look in detail at Ukraine's missing children

in a moment. Luckily though, for Mr Putin, the United States did not sign up to the Rome Statute,

so these face-to-face talks with Mr. Trump can happen on US soil.

There's a lot at stake.

Mr. Trump is keen to play peacemaker and get a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.

Mr Putin is under pressure to prove he's serious about ending the war.

This is what he had to say this morning.

I would like to tell you about the stage we are at with the current American administration,

which, as everyone here knows, is making, in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts

to stop the fighting, end the crisis and reach agreements of interest to all parties involved

in this conflict.

But Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, has not been invited to Alaska.

Instead, today, he's in London, meeting Prime Minister Stama in a show of continued European support.

At home in Kiev, people told us their expectations are low that the Alaska talks will deliver the ceasefire they so desperately want.

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