Mrs Podicenko’s hope is echoed by several of the 1,000 Ukrainian refugees who fled to Alaska since 2022 with the help of New Chance, a Russian-language church. Mrs Podicenko moved to Alaska with her friend Olena Demchenko, and her two children, Aleksander, 15, and Sofia, seven. She now works in a care home in Anchorage.

Sentiment toward Russia in Alaska has cooled since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Anchorage Assembly voted unanimously to suspend its three-decade-long sister city relationship with Magadan, Russia, and the Juneau Assembly sent its sister city of Vladivostock a letter expressing concern.

Objectives at talks 'dictated exclusively by national interests,' Foreign Ministry's deputy spokesman Alexey Fadeyev tells Anadolu