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Meeting On U.S. Soil; Protesting The Plan; European Heat Wave. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired August 10, 2025 - 03:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[03:00:00]

BEN HUNTE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, wherever you are in the world, you are now in the CNN Newsroom with me, Ben Hunte, Atlanta, and it is so good to have you with me.

Coming up on the show, Donald Trump is set to meet Vladimir Putin on U.S. soil on Friday. But will Ukraine's president be at the meeting that could decide the country, the fate of his country?

Demonstrators take the streets in Israel protesting against the proposed military takeover of Gaza.

And Europeans endure sweltering heat with some temperatures hitting 40 degrees Celsius.

The White House says the U.S. president is open to a joint summit with both leaders of Russia and Ukraine in Alaska on Friday, but an official is tamping down expectations, saying most likely any meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy would happen after Donald Trump speaks with Vladimir Putin. Ukraine's president and his European allies say there can be no deal without Ukrainian involvement.

Zelenskyy has also ruled out giving up Ukrainian land.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: What is needed is not a pause in the killings, but real lasting peace, not as he's fired sometime in the future months from now, but immediately. President Trump told me this and I fully support it.

The president of the United States has the leverage and the determination. Ukraine has supported all of President Trump's proposal since February. All parties supported the ceasefire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: Meanwhile, or Britain's foreign minister hosted a meeting with U.S. president -- or Vice President J.D. Vance and representatives from Ukraine and other European nations. A U.S. official says significant progress was made. The European nations issued a joint statement afterwards, insisting that, quote, international borders must not be changed by force.

CNN's Nick Paton Wash is in Ukraine and brings us the latest from Kyiv.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Ukraine's President Zelenskyy are very clear in his first response to some of the initial ideas around what the U.S. and Russia might be discussing in Alaska on Friday to reject the idea outright of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia, even if as an exchange for a ceasefire. Look, it is against the Ukrainian Constitution for him to do that, and it would be politically toxic with a military who've lost tens of thousands defending Ukraine from Russia's now invasion now in its fourth year and a political climate here, which will find that kind of move exceptionally hard to swallow.

Trump himself suggesting that Zelenskyy may even already have had to try and pull together the correct parliamentary consent and political elite, a sign-on for that kind of move, but it's a huge problem for Ukraine, giving up territory.

he first permutations of what a deal might look like, that seem to have been discussed by, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Russian President Vladimir Putin could potentially involve in one of the earlier drafts, some kind of giving up of the remainder of the Donetsk region and Luhansk too, pulling out of key towns, two of which Ukraine firmly still holds, significant populations there of tens of thousands, in exchange for a ceasefire.

Now, it's unclear quite what stage this plan is at, what it means for the two other regions of Ukraine that have been part of Putin's long- term war goals, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Do the frontlines freeze there, do the Russians pull out? That is all in discussion at the moment. But, ultimately, it's something that's going to be exceptionally hard for Ukraine to swallow. They don't really trust here the idea of a Russian ceasefire. They've seen Russia break that before, regroup and attack all over again.

And instead this weekend, a series of rushed meetings between European national security advisers. The U.K. foreign secretary, David Lammy, and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance in the U.K on holiday anyway, but holding meetings to essentially brief European powers on where these talks are going, what they look like.

The Europeans too rallying around Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron, U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer, German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz all calling him to express solidarity, the same message here that, there can be no peace in Ukraine without Ukraine being involved in that deal, and that Europeans have a stake in this too, as it's also about European security.

We've really set the clock back here. It feels a number of months to the time in the Saudi Arabia wherein a U.S.-Russia bilateral summit seemed to summon ideas for a peace deal here in Ukraine that Ukrainians simply couldn't accept.

[03:05:08] We seem to be there again. And above all, we must be -- in the atmosphere in the Kremlin, it must be, frankly, jubilant. They've got the first visit of Putin to the U.S. for a decade. We have significant rehabilitation for Moscow on the international stage and now a summit about peace in Ukraine without Ukraine actually being there, the U.S. and Russia potentially setting terms and presenting them to the rest of the world. That's pretty close to a dream scenario for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Add to that too the threat of secondary sanctions against his two main energy customers, well, that seems to have somewhat evaporated for now.

So all eyes on Friday in Alaska, but massive anxiety here already as to where that may lead.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kyiv, Ukraine.

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HUNTE: Ukrainians are reacting angrily to being left out of peace talks. They do not trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, and they insist they will not accept an unjust peace that's paid for with countless Ukrainian lives. Take a listen to this.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's horrible. It's unfair and horrible. It's anger and a sense of injustice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our boys, girls, how many have died? How many people are waiting for us under occupation who unfortunately do not have the opportunity to leave? And they're waiting for Ukraine under the threat of death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The current leader of America is a spineless windbag.

What is happening now is some kind of game that we do not understand. While they are negotiating something there, people are dying. If they could make a deal or wanted to, they would've had already done it. This is just for show to calm society down. The person who promised to end everything in a day is now making new statements every day. I do not believe it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe that if Trump wanted to end the war, he has every opportunity to do so. You can't play games with Putin. Look at Europe. They said, let's appease him, and he sees that he can do whatever he wants. He gets away with everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: Wow. We're hearing a very different response from Russians in Moscow who say they believe in their president's goals and motivations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Putin is a very clever man. He will go for some swapping of territories. He will, because he's clever and he values people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For sure, these talks will help because it'll be the meaning of two big, powerful figures, our president and Trump. But if these talks do not help, nothing will help. I'm sure that these talks will make some good progress in the negotiation process.

It depends on what territories the swap Trump will offer. I think the special military operation was not in order to give up all these territories in the end. Our soldiers are dying not in order to give something up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: Ukraine Security Service says it hit a Russian warehouse used for storing Iranian-made Shahed drones. This footage released by Ukraine's SBU appears to show a long range Ukrainian drone making a direct hit on the logistical hub in Tatarstan in East Central Russia. It called the warehouse a legitimate military target.

Airdrops of desperately needed humanitarian aid turned deadly in Gaza on Saturday. Just a warning, the images we're about to show you are disturbing.

Hospital officials say a 14-year-old boy was killed after being struck by a box of aid in Central Gaza. Video showed a crowd scrambling to remove the pallet from him after he was crushed by its weight. The U.N. has been warning that airdrops are dangerous. The victim's brother who was nearby described how the incident happened.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Despite the famine and the hard conditions that we live in, my brother went to get aid that was dropped into the sea by airplanes. A box fell on him directly and he was martyred. They cannot enter the aid through the crossing, but they dropped them over us and kill our children. A kid was killed in Zawayda and here and there, and nobody feels us. God is sufficient for us against them and their aide.

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HUNTE: Meanwhile, 11 more people have died from starvation, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, bringing the total number to 212 since the war began. One woman described the harsh reality that many Gazans now live in.

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UMM HIKMAT AL-MUSTAFA, DISPLACED PALESTINIAN: Since the start of the war, we've been displaced in schools. We went to the south, then returned to a tent in the north, then left the north and came to the stadium. We are thrown on the stairs because a camp inside the stadium is full. The place is cramped and overcrowded. I have no space. I sit with my children on the stands. Here they are eating from the food provided by the charitable kitchen, which is our only source of meals. This is our situation, sitting on sand and filthy dirt without a tent or anything at all.

[03:10:04]

I hope Netanyahu will not displace us. Where would we go if we were displaced? We've already been through enough. We have no homes left, nothing at all. Our children have been deprived of school and homes. We should be sitting in our houses. I wear my abaya and hijab all day long. The bathrooms here are sometimes denied to us.

Not everyone here is good. I suffer from how people treat us. There is no mercy. I'm sitting on the stands and every two families have their own bathroom. When I try and take my children at night, they tell us this is private. You can't enter. Why is it forbidden?

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HUNTE: The families of hostages in Gaza are putting Israeli leaders on notice that there'll be a price to pay if their loved ones don't return home.

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday, pushing back against a new plan for military takeover of Gaza City. This was one of the largest rallies in months. But this time around hostage families went a step further, sending a direct warning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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ELNAV ZANGAUKER, MOTHER OF HOSTAGE MATAN ZANGAUKER: If you invade parts of the strip and the living hostages are murdered, we will pursue you in the streets during elections and everywhere at all times. We will remind the people of Israel day and night that you could have secured a hostage deal and instead you chose to condemn them to death. Prime Minister, your hands will be stained with the blood of the hostages and our soldiers.

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HUNTE: The families also sent a symbolic message sitting at a dining table with canned food and sand spread across it. It was meant to represent the dire conditions and hunger their loved ones are facing in captivity.

CNN's Matthew Chance was at the protest.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're here in the center of Tel Aviv where thousands of people have gathered to express their anger, their fury at this latest decision by the Israeli government, Israeli military, to go into the Gaza Strip and to occupy Gaza City, the most densely populated area that remains inside Gaza. There are a great deal of concerns here that that military operation, which is expected to take place within the next two months, will jeopardize the security, the lives of the Israeli hostages still being held inside Gaza. There are 50 hostages still inside Gaza. 20 of them are still believed to be alive. And so there's a great deal of concern amongst the Israeli public about that. It's also a concern that the Israeli military is already overstretched. The military has expressed its opposition to further military action. And that opposition is reflected in the population at large. Opinion polls say 70 percent of Israelis want an end to the war right now and an immediate deal with Hamas to get the hostages back home and for the war to end.

Every night -- every Saturday night, rather, there are protests like this in Tel Aviv, but this one is particularly intense as the country stands on the brink of yet more military operations inside Gaza. In fact, the only people in Israel who are really satisfied and happy with this decision to go into Gaza are the far right parties on which Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, depends for the survival of his fragile political coalition.

And that's why there's such a lot of criticism that you hear expressed here that this latest next phase in the conflict in Gaza is motivated by politics, by his political survival, not by a necessity to secure the future of Israel.

Matthew Chance, CNN, in Tel Aviv.

HUNTE: Hundreds were arrested by London police on Saturday for protesting the British government's decision to ban the activist group Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws. The U.K.-based group received its prescribed status after authorities say activists with the group broke into Britain's largest air base in Central England in June, damaging two military aircraft. Those charged have not yet entered pleas. Police had cautioned, but it would arrest anyone showing support for the band group.

CNN's Isobel Yeung reports.

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ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are quite a lot of police coming in here today, hundreds of police, I think, almost as many police, as protesters, and that is because of the sheer number of protesters here.

There's a lot of frustration, particularly since Netanyahu's government decided to the plan to expand the war in Gaza. All these protesters here are here to support a group called Palestine Action, and the U.K. government has just recently described them a terrorist organization.

[03:15:06]

And that means that showing support for this group could land you with up to 14 years in prison.

And how are you feeling today?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm nervous. YEUNG: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But, hopefully, it all goes well.

We need to help Palestine. It's a genocide. And the moment our government is saying, no, you can't talk about this, that's when we lose our freedom of speech, and that's when Palestine don't get the help they need.

YEUNG: Oh my God. Things are going a little bit rowdy here at the moment. The police seem to be arresting quite a number of protesters.

Things are getting very rowdy. It's not a great look for the police arresting so many people, I have to say, at the moment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Genocide police, genocide police, genocide police.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNTE: Well, Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza and maintains that it is committed to international law and operates accordingly in the enclave.

Europe is once again facing extreme heat. Coming up, how communities across the continent are dealing with the high temperatures.

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HUNTE: Welcome back. Fires in Spain have gotten so intense. A military emergency unit had to join firefighters in the mountains northeast of Madrid on Saturday. Dozens of people who live in the area had to be evacuated. Trains between Madrid and the city of Avila were disrupted and some roads are closed. The fire was mostly brought under control later in the day, but residents were still unable to return home. A summer heat wave across Southern Europe is also sparking fires in Greece and France.

Europe is enduring a heat wave that's impacting millions of people. In parts of France, temperatures have soared to 40 degrees Celsius or 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat wave is expected to persist there through at least early next week.

More now on how communities across the continent are dealing with that scorching heat.

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HUNTE (voice over): The fountains in Florence are streaming with water. At least they look cool in the scorching summer heat, but that's not so easy for people moving about under the blazing sun in Italy as temperatures continue to bake in parts of Southern Europe, in some places reaching or exceeding 40 degrees Celsius or 104 degrees Fahrenheit. VITTORIO CANU, LOCAL PAINTER: In June, it was horrible. It was extremely hot. Let's see what will happen now.

HUNTE: It was about a month-and-a-half ago when during another severe heat wave. Researchers found an estimated 2,300 heat related deaths occurred in just 10 days across 12 major European cities. People in Madrid are trying to find ways to stay safe as this latest round of intense heat is expected to last until Wednesday.

MARIA PEREIRA, TOURIST: There isn't much shade to cool off in. We're always filling up our water bottles. Walking in the sun becomes very difficult.

HUNTE: Many places in Europe aren't built for the heat. Only around 20 percent of European homes have air conditioning, and in some places, the rate is even lower. Building materials, like the zinc roofs in Paris, can trap heat inside buildings. Officials in Paris say they plan to add greenery and insulation to offset the oven effect created by the roofs. But it is just expected to get hotter in years to come and European cities often have higher temperatures than rural areas during the summertime, sometimes by up to 10 to 15 degrees Celsius.

RAPHAELLE HAYWOOD, SENIOR LECTURER IN PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY, UNIVERSITY OF EXETER: Basically, the tarmac and the concrete absorbs all this heat, and they get warmer, and also these places don't cool down as much during the night. So, you're more likely to have these prolonged, you know, two, three-week events where the temperature just doesn't go below 20 degrees at night.

HUNTE: Climate shelters are becoming more prevalent in Europe, spaces where people can work, rest, or just hang out in an air conditioned environment, a break from the heat that, in such extreme conditions, isn't just a luxury anymore but a necessity.

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HUNTE (on camera): Colombian flower growers are gearing up for a special event in Medellin, the Silleteros Parade. They've been picking and arranging thousands of flowers for more than 500 people who will march through the city later today. They'll carry silleteros wooden structures laden with the colorful arrangements on their backs.

The silleteros were originally used to carry other goods and now they're seen as works of art, symbols of local heritage. For some artisans, it's more than a one day parade. This is all about legacy and the future of an age old tradition.

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FRANCISCO QUINTERO, SILLETERO AND ARTISAN: We have many new ideas and I have a bunch of young people working with me who are eager to be a part of all this. So, it's a unique emotion to look at the past, feel this present we're living in, and know that the future will be even more promising because my son is going to participate tomorrow in the parade too. So it's quite exciting knowing this will go on for a long time. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: A group of astronauts is back on Earth after spending nearly five months aboard the International Space Station. They returned in a SpaceX Dragon capsule on Saturday. This was the company's third Pacific splash down with people on board, but it was the first for NASA in 50 years.

[03:25:04]

The last time at NASA astronauts landed in the Pacific was during the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission. Two Americans returned on the Dragon along with astronauts from Japan and Russia.

Have a look at this, a time-lapse video of what's known as the Sturgeon Moon rising behind the ancient temple of Poseidon near Athens, Greece. It is the last full moon of summer in the northern hemisphere. The name stems from the Old Farmer's Almanac with August marking the time of year when Sturgeon were caught in the lakes of North America.

Saturday's peak illumination came amid a series of meteor showers and was also accompanied by glimpses of Jupiter and Venus.

A new sport has debuted at the World Games, the athletic event for sports that are not in the Olympics. Dragon boat races were introduced as an official game sport on Saturday with Indonesia taking home the gold in the open eight-seater 2,000 meter race. Crews of up to 20 athletes, including a drummer and a steerer, propel brightly colored boats carved to look like dragons. The games that says dragon boat racing is perhaps one of the most traditionally Chinese sports on its roster.

Dragon Boat races took place at the World Games as an invitational discipline in 2005 and 2009.

That's all I've got for you. Thanks for joining me and the team. I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta. Blueprint is up next, and then there's so much more CNN Newsroom in about 30 minutes.

See you tomorrow.

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