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'We'll do best we can,' Trump promises ahead of Putin summit

Meanwhile, Trump’s interview with Fox News Radio has just wrapped up, with Trump signing off with a promise on tomorrow’s Alaska meeting with Putin:

“We’ll do the best we can, and I think we’ll have a good result in the end.”

Security guarantees, territorial disputes all part of talk about Ukraine, Rubio says

Separately, US state secretary Marco Rubio said that security guarantees for Ukraine needed to be part of peace talks with Russia, adding he was hopeful of imminent progress towards ending the war, AFP reported.

Ahead of the Trump-Putin summit on Friday, Rubio said that “to achieve peace, I think we all recognise that there’ll have to be some conversation about security guarantees.”

“There’ll have to be some conversation about ... territorial disputes and claims, and what they’re fighting over,” he added, Reuters said.

On a future ceasefire, he said, “we’ll see what’s possible tomorrow.

Let’s see how the talks go. And we’re hopeful.

'25%' chance meeting with Putin will end in failure if there's no second meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump says

Trump got also asked if he thought there was a chance of the meeting ending in failure.

In response, he said he saw it as 25%.

He said the main aim of tomorrow’s summit was to set up a second meeting – involving Zelenskyy – to make a deal, comparing it to “a chess game.”

He argued it would include “a give and take as to boundaries, lands.”

He then said:

“There is a 25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting, in which case I will [return to] run the country and we have made America great again already in six months.”

He also suggested he could follow up with sanctions on Russia in that scenario.

Trump says Putin 'wants to get it done,' as he once again floats another meeting with Zelenskyy

US president Donald Trump is speaking to Fox News Radio right now, and he has just said that he thought Russian president Vladimir Putin “wants to get it done” at tomorrow’s summit in Alaska.

Asked if his threats of sanctions may have influenced Putin’s decision to agree to a meeting, he said:

“Everything has an impact,” as he added that secondary tariffs against India “essentially took them out of buying oil from Russia.”

“Certainly, when you lose your second largest customer and you’re probably going to lose your first largest customer, I think that probably has a role,” he said.

Trump got also asked if he was ready to provide “economic incentives” to Russia to stop fighting in Ukraine, but he declined to say, explaining he wouldn’t “want to play my hand in public.”

He repeatedly said that Russia had “a tremendous potential,” with value in “oil and gas, a very profitable business.”

But Trump stressed he was primarily interested in making progress with Putin, and he would then immediately call Zelenskyy to “get him over to wherever we are going to meet.”

“We have an idea of three different locations,” he said, adding “including the possibility, because it would be by far the easiest, of staying in Alaska.”

“If it’s a bad meeting, I’m not calling anybody. I’m going home.

But if it’s a good meeting, I’m going to call President Zelensky and the European leaders.”

Addressing the reports he could hold a joint press conference with Putin, he said:

“I’m going to have a press conference. I don’t know if it’s going to be a joint. We haven’t even discussed it. I think it might be nice to have a joint, and then separates.”

But he then added that he would hold a press conference in any scenario, even if the talks collapse.

No plans to sign documents at Alaska summit, Kremlin reportedly says, warning against predicting outcome of talks

We are just getting some lines from Russia in what appears to be an attempt to manage expectations ahead of tomorrow’s Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska.

The Kremlin, via the Russian news agency Interfax, has said there are no plans to sign documents on the outcome of the summit, and warned it would be “a big mistake” to predict outcome of the talks, Reuters reported.

Serbia see clashes between pro-government groups and anti-graft protesters

In other news across Europe, the situation in Serbia merits renewed attention as large groups of pro-government supporters, most wearing masks, confronted groups taking part in long-running anti-graft protests run by student movements, AFP reported.

AFP noted that the worst violence was reported in parts of Belgrade and Novi Sad, where the protest movement first began, with dozens injured and arrested.

Serbian gendarmerie officers separate protesters from opposing camps during an anti-government protest in Belgrade, Serbia. Photograph: Darko Vojinović/AP

One man, later identified as a military police officer, fired a pistol into the air as protesters approached the ruling party’s offices in Novi Sad, causing panic.

Footage also showed supporters of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party launching fireworks at protesters gathered outside the party’s headquarters there.

An image taken from video shows fireworks flying as clashes erupted at protests in Vrbas, Serbia. Photograph: AP

Since November, near-daily protests have taken place over the collapse of a train station in Novi Sad. The tragedy, which killed 16 people, soon became a flashpoint as people across the country seized on it to demand greater government transparency and express their broader dissatisfaction with Serbia’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

The agency said that over the past nine months, thousands of mostly peaceful, student-led demonstrations have been held, some attracting hundreds of thousands.

But it added that this week’s violence however marks a significant escalation and indicates the increasing strain on Aleksandar Vučić’s populist government, in power for 13 years.

A protester holds a banner reading 'Your hands are bloodied' during an anti-government protest in Belgrade, Serbia. Photograph: Andrej Čukić/EPA

Russian senior delegation to Alaska shows Putin means business — snap analysis

Russian affairs reporter

Putin’s delegation has been announced (11:20) and, unsurprisingly, the Russian leader will be flanked by some of the most powerful figures in the Kremlin’s inner circle – seasoned political operators, financial strategists and diplomatic enforcers who have shaped Russia’s foreign and economic policy for more than two decades.

The mix of old-guard loyalists and younger financial power-brokers points to Putin’s aim of wooing Trump’s ear and dangling financial incentives for siding with Moscow on Ukraine.

Notably, alongside a cadre of veteran diplomats, Putin is bringing two prominent economic advisers.

The presence of finance minister Anton Siluanov is particularly striking: he has overseen Russia’s response to sweeping western sanctions, the lifting of which the Kremlin has repeatedly set as a central condition for any peace deal.

Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov and Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO and Special Presidential Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries, Kirill Dmitriev, speak with each other before a meeting chaired by the Russian president in preparation for the upcoming Russia-US summit in Alaska, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. Photograph: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA

Meanwhile, let’s take a closer look at tomorrow’s Trump-Putin summit and at the Russian delegation attending with the Russian president.

Over to our Russian affairs reporter, Pjotr Sauer.

Climate change exacerbating severity of fires across Europe, experts say

Europe environment correspondent

The deadly fires come as southern Europe suffers intense heat that has broken temperature records across the continent – made worse by fossil fuel pollution that traps sunlight and heats the planet – and which has dried out vegetation.

A property surrounded by burned vegetation in the municipality of Teresa de Cofrentes, in the province of Valencia, Spain. Photograph: Manuel Bruque/EPA

“It’s obvious that climate change is exacerbating the severity of fires,” said Eduardo Rojas Briales, a forestry researcher at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and former deputy director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. “But it’s not responsible to wait for greenhouse gas emissions to drop … as the sole approach to addressing the problem.”

He called for additional policies such as ensuring dead plant material is kept at manageable levels, creating gaps in vegetation, for instance through reversing rural abandonment, and using prescribed burning.

“There is no alternative but to build landscapes … that are truly resilient to fires,” he said.

Firefighters work to extinguish a wildfire near the city of Patras, western Greece. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

A report published Thursday by XDI, a climate risk analysis group, found that the climate crisis has doubled the risk of infrastructure damage from forest fires in France, Italy, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria since 1990. It predicted risk would increase further still in future.

“We’re all asking ourselves, how much worse can it get?,” said Karl Mallon, XDI’s head of science and technology.

“According to our latest analysis, a lot.”

Spain activates EU civil protection mechanism to get EU help with wildfires

Meanwhile, Spain has activated an EU civil protection mechanism for the first time seeking outside help to deal with severe wildfires fuelled by the current heatwave, the European Commission has said.

A firefighting helicopter drops water over a wildfire near the village of Larouco, in the province of Ourense, in northwestern Spain. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The forest fires engulfing parts of Spain have killed three people over recent days (9:51, 10:38).

Brussels said it has today sent two planes stationed in France from its “rescEU” programme designed to protect citizens with teams from the Netherlands and Estonia deployed to support national efforts.

The civil protection mechanism allows firefighting personnel and vehicles and aircraft from other countries to be deployed in countries of need with the bill picked up in Brussels.

“The mechanism has been activated 16 times this year, already equal to the total number of activations of the whole summer season last year,” said an EU spokesperson.

The EU said:

“During the past week, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania activated the mechanism to help deal with forest fires – many of which are occurring simultaneously across Europe.

Greece activated the Mechanism on 12 August. In response, the two Swedish rescEU helicopters currently in Bulgaria are expected to be deployed. Prepositioned firefighters from Czechia, Moldova and Romania also took part in the efforts to put out the fires.

In Bulgaria six countries - Czechia, Slovakia, France, Hungary, Romania, Sweden - mobilised aircraft via the Mechanism including the rescEU helicopters stationed in Sweden.

In Albania, the Commission mobilised rescEU aerial assets from Croatia, Bulgaria, Italy and Czechia and Slovakia.

“In Montenegro, the Commission mobilised rescEU assets stationed in Czechia, Croatia and Italy. Serbia, Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina also deployed aircraft means as part of bilateral offers, and Austria offered ground firefighting teams.”

What to expect from Alaska summit? — snap analysis

Defence and security editor
Speaking to BBC News, from Kyiv

I don’t think Putin is going to be in a mood to compromise very much in Alaska.

I think Donald Trump will be doing very well to get any further concessions out of Putin, because it’s the little tactical successes on the frontline that just make Russia keep thinking, ‘we can grind our way to a victory there’.

There’s very little expectation in Ukraine of any kind of sort of goodwill from Vladimir Putin, or any kind of compromise, or anything that leads to compromise. The two sides are miles apart.

Russia continues to make these maximalist demands of territory. The latest demand appears to be all of Donetsk province, about 9000 square kilometres, in return for a ceasefire, … including the significant cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Zelensky already said he can’t agree to that.

A view of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) in Anchorage, Alaska, United States, where US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin are expected to hold their summit. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

The idea that Trump can force Vladimir Putin into a dramatically different way of thinking, I don’t think there’s a lot of optimism around that.

What we are likely to see is a lot of theatre and perhaps Putin will try to be smooth as possible to minimise the differences, but the reality is that I would be very surprised to see any significant or meaningful progress.

We might see commitment to further meetings, but I’m really not confident we’re going to see much more than that.

Alaska meeting presents 'viable chance to make progress' if Putin is serious, UK says after Starmer-Zelenskyy talks

The Trump-Putin summit in Alaska presents “a viable chance to make progress as long as Putin takes action to prove he is serious about peace,” Downing Street said in a statement after Starmer’s meeting with Zelenskyy in London.

Prime minister Keir Starmer meets Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, for a bilateral meeting in 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street

The UK prime minister and the Ukrainian president discussed yesterday’s consultations with Trump, saying “there had been a powerful sense of unity and a strong resolve to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” the readout said.

More on our UK live blog:

Security guarantees part of discussions with UK, Zelenskyy says after meeting Starmer

In a short statement after his meeting with UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy said they discussed “in considerable detail the security guarantees that can make peace truly durable if the United States succeeds in pressing Russia to stop the killings and engage in genuine, substantive diplomacy.”

The pair also discussed “mechanisms for weapons supplies,” with Zelenskyy urging Starmer to join the growing list of countries funding new weapons for Ukraine through Nato’s new Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List scheme.

They also discussed Ukraine’s plans to “increase production volumes” of drones, with the country “urgently needing financing for this.”

“Drones play a decisive role on the frontline, and Ukraine’s capabilities to produce them are exceptional. Therefore, investment in such production can truly influence the situation at the strategic level. We are working with the UK and all our partners on this.”

The leaders also talked about their bilateral partnership agreed earlier this year, Zelenskyy said.

EU sees no justificiation for Chinese sanctions on Lithuanian banks

Separately, the EU has said it sees no justification for China to sanction two Lithuanian banks in retaliation against the bloc’s sanctions on two Chinese banks as part of the 18th package of sanctions on Russia.

“We don’t believe those countermeasures have any justification and therefore we call on China to remove them now,” said EU spokesperson Olof Gill.

He said the EU was continuing discussions with China about the sanctions on the banks which came into force on 9 August.

China took countermeasures against two banks in the European Union, in response to the bloc placing two Chinese financial institutions on a Russia-related sanctions list, its commerce ministry said on Wednesday.

Effective immediately, Lithuanian banks UAB Urbo Bankas and AB Mano Bankas were banned from carrying out transactions and cooperation with organisations and individuals within China, the ministry’s statement said.

EU gets new proposals from US on trade, continues to work to progress text

For days, we have been waiting for progress to be made on the EU-US trade deal agreed politically by Trump and EU’s von der Leyen in Scotland, and been expecting a “joint statement” taking it further towards a legally binding text.

EU trade spokesperson Olof Gill has just confirmed there is a bit of progress on that as he said:

“I’m now happy to confirm that we have received a text from the US with their suggestions for, let’s say, getting closer to that final finalisation of the document.

So we’re going to look at that now. We’ll have some engagement at both technical and political level with our American counterparts.”

He added

“We are now going to invest our substantial high-level skills from this house into transmitting our final views to the US, and then it will be over to them again to get it over the line.

I know it’s tedious for you all that I’m saying repeatedly we are close, [but] that’s the factual analysis of the matter. We are close, we just need to get these final tweaks over the line.”

Putin holds meeting with top officials to prepare for Trump, praising 'sincere efforts' from US to end Ukraine war

We are also getting a bit more on the Russian preparations for the summit in Alaska, with Tass reporting that president Vladimir Putin held a meeting with some of the country’s top officials to prepare for the meeting with Trump.

Reuters reported that following the meeting, Putin said the US administration was making “sincere efforts” to resolve the Ukraine conflict.

The Russian president also reportedly suggested Moscow and Washington could reach a deal on nuclear arms control that could strengthen peace.

EU 'welcomes' suggestion US could join in providing security guarantees for Ukraine

The commission’s spokesperson also said the EU “welcomed” the indication from the US president, Donald Trump, on yesterday’s call that the US could participate in providing security guarantees for Ukraine.

Asked if it was down to the bloc’s lobbying, she said:

It doesn’t matter exactly how he arrived to this point.

The important aspect is that the US has said that they are willing to do so. And of course, we very much welcome all efforts that will guarantee the possibility for Ukraine to be in a solid position to defend itself.

Trump will debrief Ukraine, EU after his meeting with Putin, EU says

In the last few minutes, the European Commission said that the EU’s understanding was that “President Trump will debrief president Zelensky and European leaders following his bilateral meeting” with Putin on Alaska.

The commission’s deputy chief spokesperson Arianna Podestà said:

“We don’t have a specific time frame [that] I can share with you on this. It also depends on the timing of the meeting, length, et cetera, time differences, but our understanding is indeed that there will be a debrief.”

Finland's Stubb praised for 'unexpected bond' with Trump that helps Europe get its points across

Separately, the Wall Street Journal highlighted the importance of another leader playing a critical role in getting US president Trump to understand the European position a bit better.

Finnish president Alexander Stubb has “formed an unexpected bond” with Trump, WSJ said, after meeting with the US president for golf, with the pair regularly chatting on the phone ever since.

President Donald Trump, third from right, flanked by first lady Melania Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, front row left, and Finland's President Alexander Stubb, second left, attend the funeral of Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP

Playing golf with Trump “vaulted the little-known Stubb into a back-channel role with the US president,” WSJ said, making him “a key conduit for European officials seeking to influence” the US position ahead of this Friday’s high-stakes summit with Putin.

“People know that we Finns don’t have a hidden agenda, and we’re also quite blunt. I can communicate what Europeans or Zelensky think to Trump, and then I can communicate what Trump thinks to my European colleagues,” he told WSJ.

Influential Republican senator Lindsey Graham is said to speak with Stubb even twice a day, confirming to the paper that they would regularly text each other, “getting insight about what’s going on, giving advice.”

In a revealing paragraph, the WSJ said:

“Their contacts have become so frequent that Finnish diplomats in Washington joke that instead of reporting developments in Washington to Helsinki they were hearing about it from the president.”

You can read the WSJ’s profile in full here.