Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service live from London.
This is Owen Bennett-Jones.
So the Alaska summit has begun.
The two presidents came in their planes, landed quite close to each other.
Red carpets were rolled out.
They walked towards each other, shook hands, shared a joke of some kind.
It wasn't clear.
The microphones didn't pick it up.
But President Trump said something that President Putin laughed at.
Then it was on to a nearby building.
Aides were present.
There had been talk of this being a one-on-one meeting with translators only.
But in fact, the two teams of senior diplomats and so on were with the presidents.
batted off some questions, not really answering them at all from journalists,
and the talks run away.
So now we wait,
and one of the men who's not there and has to wait with us is President Zelensky in Kyiv.
He said before these talks began that Russia was still attacking Ukraine in the hours approaching the talks.
The war continues.
It continues precisely