Closing summary
Russian 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.
Donald Trump has told Fox News Radio that the second meeting between him and Vladimir Putin would be “very, very important”. The US president has indicated that any future meeting, where a deal would be struck on key details such as territory, would involved the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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.
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.”
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.
The heatwave-fuelled wildfires that have killed three people in Spain over recent days, devouring thousands of hectares of land and forcing thousands of people from their homes, are a “clear warning” of the impact of the climate emergency, the country’s environment minister has said.
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.
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.
European leaders have praised President Donald Trump for agreeing to allow US military support for a force they are mustering to police any future peace in Ukraine – a move that vastly improves the chances of success for an operation that could prove essential for the country’s security.
The leaders said Trump offered American military backup for the European “reassurance force” during a call they held with him ahead of his planned summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday, AP reported. They did not say what the assistance might involve and Trump himself has not publicly confirmed any support.
The effectiveness of the operation, drawn up by the coalition of about 30 countries supporting Ukraine, hinges on the deterrent effect of US air power or other military equipment that European armed forces do not have, or have only in short supply.
No US troops would be involved, but the threat of American air power, if needed, behind the European force would likely help to dissuade Russian troops from testing Europe’s resolve.
Senior Russian officials have repeatedly rejected the idea of European peacekeepers in Ukraine, even though a traditional UN-style peacekeeping force is not being planned.
Trump: Second Putin meeting will be 'very, very important'
Donald Trump has told Fox News Radio that the second meeting between him and Vladimir Putin would be “very, very important”.
The US president has indicated that any future meeting, where a deal would be struck on key details such as territory, would involved the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don’t want to use the word ‘divvy’ things up. But you know, to a certain extent, it’s not a bad term, okay?” Trump told Fox News Radio.
Updated
That’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today, but Tom Ambrose is here to take you through the late afternoon and bring you the latest ahead of the Trump-Putin summit tomorrow.
'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.”
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
Updated
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.
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:
Updated
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.”
Updated
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.
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.
Germany's Merz gets measured praise for Ukraine diplomacy, but Nato's Rutte gets most credit
in Berlin
German chancellor Friedrich Merz’s stab at heading up Ukraine diplomacy has received measured praise at home, with a perception that Donald Trump’s declarations after Wednesday’s video conference sounded slightly less alarming to European ears than before.
News outlet Der Spiegel has a multi-sourced play-by-play from the call initiated by Merz in which it credits the much-criticised Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, with making the penny drop for Trump on a key point.
Rutte received flak in June after a Nato summit at which he showered the US president with compliments over his actions on Iran and bizarrely referred to him as “daddy”.
More recently he raised eyebrows by acknowledging even before Friday’s summit that Ukraine may ultimately have to accept de facto Russian control over parts of its occupied territory as part of a future peace agreement.
But Spiegel said participants hailed Rutte’s constructive role in the talks with Trump on Wednesday, using clear, direct language to explain that if Russia were allowed to permanently control cities in the eastern Donbas as part of a land swap, it would open up “a motorway to Kyiv” for Russian troops to take control of the capital.
Participants recounted watching the “light go on” for Trump, who then reportedly conveyed he did not intend to negotiate territorial concessions.
Spiegel quoted members of Merz’s team as saying that they were “relieved” by the “very constructive” tone taken by Trump and his vice-president JD Vance.
“The Ukrainian delegation, which was present in the room when Merz and (president Volodymyr) Zelenskyy spoke with Trump on the phone, is said to have applauded loudly at the end of the conversation,” Spiegel said.
German officials had sought to impose discipline on participants to accommodate Trump’s limited attention span: “A clear structure was planned for the approximately one-hour telephone call: Merz would present his case concisely, the others would respond briefly, and there would be no lengthy monologues,” the officials told Spiegel.
Zelenskyy was also strongly encouraged “not to allow himself to be provoked” by the Americans to avoid any repeat of February’s disastrous Oval Office clash.
“Zelenskyy followed this advice,” participants told Spiegel.
Merz’s aides hailed the fact Trump reiterated some of their key points: the meeting in Alaska was only a kind of preliminary discussion, and only after that could proper peace negotiations take place, in which the Ukrainian president would also have to participate.
The Europeans had previously told Trump Putin would only budge if the US increased the pressure.
“Trump listens to whoever talks to him last: for now, this little psychological trick seems to be working,” Spiegel said.
Kremlin looks to go beyond 'peace deal,' hopes for reset in US-Russia relations — snap analysis
The new details of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska suggest the Kremlin is seeking to go beyond talks over a “peace deal” in Ukraine and is looking for a comprehensive reset of US-Russia relations.
The two sides have met several times since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, with bilateral talks led by the US secretary of state Marco Rubio in Riyadh. This broader agenda appears to be on the table again, with Russia keen to stress the benefit of joint commercial opportunities.
Russia has previously indicated it wants to cooperate with the US in a number of areas. They include trade, minerals, oil, and the Arctic. In return for deals with US oil majors, say, it is likely to demand the lifting of sanctions on key Russian businesses and oligarchs.
Any weakening by Trump of US sanctions on Russia will dismay Ukraine and its European allies.
They will also be anxious about a joint Trump-Vladimir Putin press conference. At their last infamous appearance together in Helsinki in 2018, Trump said Russia had not interfered in the 2016 US presidential election – which it had.
One interesting figure in Russia’s delegation is Kirill Dmitriev, an investment banker and the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund. Dmitriev – a fluent English speaker – has escorted Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, on his several trips to Moscow.
Dmitriev is the Kremlin’s Witkoff whisperer. His job is to convince the White House that Russia is serious about “peace” in Ukraine and that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the obstacle to it.
Zelenskyy visits Starmer in London — in pictures
For more on the visit, follow our UK blog:
(I know, this No10 mug is really cool, but it doesn’t appear that it’s in open sales – a quick Google tells me it was commissioned ‘years ago’ and meant as a gift for foreign leaders visiting London. So if you want one, you need to get elected somewhere, I suppose.)
More details on Trump-Putin talks emerge, with plans for joint press conference
We are getting a bit more details about the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, coming from the Russian side, via Reuters.
The meeting will begin 11:30am local time in Alaska, so 20:30 BST, 21:30 CEST.
Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin’s foreign policy adviser and former Russian ambassador to the US, briefed the media that the two presidents will have a “one on one meeting” with translators, but also hold a “wider meeting” with delegations and a working breakfast.
Ushakov said that Ukraine will be the “central topic” of the conversation, but the pair will also discuss trade and economic cooperation.
The Russian delegation will include foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, defence minister Andrey Belousov, finance minister Anton Siluanov, head of Russian sovereign fund Kirill Dmitriev, and Ushakov, he said.
The two leaders are also expected to give a joint press conference at the end of the summit, he said, which should be a big, big moment.
Updated
Big hug from Starmer for Zelenskyy in another show of solidarity, but Kyiv has no illusions about Trump - snap analysis
Speaking on BBC News
It’s interesting seeing those images, because you’ll remember after that Oval Office meeting, the first place that President Zelensky came to was London, and there was a big demonstrative hug by Keir Starmer, the prime minister, of Zelensky, a sort of show of solidarity after a bruising encounter with Trump and JD Vance.
I don’t think Zelensky can trust Donald Trump. The Ukrainians, since that disastrous episode, have been doing everything they can to basically … fix relations with America, with Washington, and that strategy has played out, and we have to sort of see where they are tomorrow.
But I think if Trump ends up, after his meeting with Putin, blaming Zelenskyy for the war, suggesting he is the problem, the obstacle to peace, the obstacle to a ceasefire and meaningful progress, no one in Kyiv will be surprised by that.
Updated
Zelenskyy arrives at Downing Street for talks with Starmer
Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has just arrived at Downing Street for talks with UK prime minister Keir Starmer, who greeted him with a big hug.
The pair briefly chatted outside the reach of microphones, and did not respond to any questions shouted by reporters.
His most senior aide, Andriy Yermak, was also seen as part of the Ukrainian delegation going into the building.
Spain wildfires are ‘clear warning’ of climate emergency, minister says
Sam Jones in Madrid, Helena Smith in Athens and agencies
The heatwave-fuelled wildfires that have killed three people in Spain over recent days, devouring thousands of hectares of land and forcing thousands of people from their homes, are a “clear warning” of the impact of the climate emergency, the country’s environment minister has said.
Speaking on Wednesday morning, as firefighters in Spain, Greece and other Mediterranean countries continued to battle dozens of blazes, Sara Aagesen said the 14 wildfires still burning across seven Spanish regions were further proof of the country’s particular vulnerability to global heating.
Aagesen said that while some of the fires appeared to have been started deliberately, the deadly blazes were a clear indicator of the climate emergency and of the need for better preparation and prevention.
“The fires are one of the parts of the impact of that climate change, which is why we have to do all we can when it comes to prevention,” she told Cadena Ser radio.
“Our country is especially vulnerable to climate change. We have resources now but, given that the scientific evidence and the general expectation point to it having an ever greater impact, we need to work to reinforce and professionalise those resources.”
The Spanish government on Wednesday said it has asked the European Union for its help, in particular for two water-bombing planes. “We officially asked tonight” for the assistance, interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Cadena Ser.
Neighbouring Portugal deployed more than 2,100 firefighters and 20 aircraft against five big blazes, with efforts focused on a fire in the central municipality of Trancoso that has raged since Saturday.
Strong gusts of wind had rekindled flames overnight and threatened nearby villages, where television images showed local people volunteering to help firefighters under a thick cloud of smoke.
In Greece, which requested EU aerial assistance on Tuesday, close to 5,000 firefighters were battling blazes fanned by gale-force winds nationwide. Authorities said emergency workers were waging a “a titanic battle” to douse flames still raging through the western Peloponnese, in Epirus farther north, and on the islands of Zakynthos, Kefalonia and Chios, where thousands of residents and tourists have been evacuated from homes and hotels.
Local media reported the wildfires had decimated houses, farms and factories and forced people to flee. Fifteen firefighters and two volunteers had suffered burns and other injuries including “symptoms of heatstroke”, the fire service said.
Turkey has been battling severe wildfires since late June. A total of 18 people have been killed, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers who died in July.
In southern Albania a wildfire caused explosions after detonating buried second world war-era artillery shells. Officials said on Wednesday an 80-year-old man had died in one blaze south of the capital, Tirana.
Why are Spanish politicians in denial about deadly heatwaves — comment
What is happening in Spain now goes far beyond discomfort. More than 1,500 deaths have already been linked to heatwaves this summer alone. Public-sector workers are collapsing from heatstroke on our city streets. Entire communities in the Madrid suburbs have been devastated by wildfires.
On Monday, 198 weather stations recorded temperatures of 40C or higher. Following a record-breaking July, the first 20 days of August will probably be the warmest on record. Alongside housing, the climate crisis is Spain’s most visible and most persistent problem: every summer reminds us of this. You can’t ignore it, or escape it; so why are Spain’s politicians still so reluctant to tackle the climate emergency?
Fighting global heating is a worldwide challenge, but protecting populations against the consequences – with an awareness that Europe is heating faster than other continents – must also be a national and a local priority.
Within Spain, the climate crisis too often becomes an excuse for superficial, party-political feuds. In the population at large, there has been years of broad popular consensus, but contrast that with Spain’s politicians, for whom the issue has become increasingly partisan, with the right and the left fighting over totemic policies about cars and bikes.
Even Spain’s centre-left coalition government, led by Pedro Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE), has taken only modest steps to reduce emissions from industry and transport. And as they do on other issues, the socialists rush to point the finger at regional and local governments run by the conservative People’s party (PP), supported in some cases by the far-right Vox, which has pushed falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the climate crisis.
It is true that Spain’s regional and local governments, powerful and well funded, also bear great responsibility: for protecting the most vulnerable from extreme heat, adapting public spaces, planting trees and ensuring there is sufficient shade and water fountains. One urgent necessity is the creation of “cool banks”, especially for people in overcrowded and overheated homes, those with health vulnerabilities, the very young and the very old. Valencia has a network of these climate shelters, while Barcelona has mapped out hundreds of public spaces where people can escape the heat, from libraries to museums.
But too many local governments are still failing to provide respite. Madrid is among the worst offenders. Public cooling centres are almost nonexistent, and shopping centres remain the most common refuge. The capital’s conservative regional and local governments have been passive or even hostile towards public demands to reduce dangerous heat levels in neighbourhoods, with too few green spaces and too many cars. When Madrid’s city hall does spend money, it often misses the point: the most absurd example is Puerta del Sol, the central square that after months of renovation work still feels like a concrete frying pan all summer. Only after protests did the city council finally install a few flimsy shades, at a cost of €1.5m.
The most dramatic consequences of the climate crisis make headlines around the world: the tragic deaths of workers in vulnerable jobs, picking fruit or cleaning streets, and wildfires killing people, destroying homes and even a Roman-era mining site – now a burned-out Unesco world heritage site. But across Spain, the signs are everywhere: crops ruined by hail, high-speed trains disrupted, and neighbourhoods baking in the heat.
The frustrating question is why our politicians are still shrugging off this reality, as though it were just an inconvenience. How many broken records and how many heatwave deaths will it take to change this?
Third person dies in wildfires in Spain
And in the last few minutes, the Spanish authorities reported a third fatality in wildfires in the country this week, after a 36-year-old man died after suffering extensive burns while battling a fire in Castile and León.
“Today, we mourn a new death of a person who was part of the firefighting operation in the province of Leon, more specifically in the Valderia region,” Nicanor Sen Vélez, prefect for Castile and Leon, wrote on X.
There are currently 11 active fires across the country.
Morning opening: And now we wait
With European leaders sighing relief after their promising coordination call with Trump, there is not much else they can do now other than wait to see what comes out of the US president’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska tomorrow.
Flying in from Berlin where he met German chancellor Friedrich Merz, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting UK prime minister Keir Starmer in London this morning to further highlight the European unity ahead of the talks.
Elsewhere, we will be looking at extreme temperatures that continue to affect large parts of southern Europe with dangerous wildfires reported in Spain, Greece, and Albania among others. Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, is expected to hit somewhat extreme 44 Celsius today.
I will bring you all the key updates here.
It’s Thursday, 14 August 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
