Putin lays flowers for Soviet pilots buried in Alaska after Trump summit; here’s why they are buried there | World News

Russian President Vladimir Putin laid flowers at the graves of Soviet pilots buried in Alaska after concluding his summit with US President Donald Trump. Putin visited Fort Richardson National Cemetery near Anchorage on Saturday, where a section is dedicated to Soviet airmen who lost their lives in Alaska during the war.
According to Reuters, the pilots died in training accidents or harsh weather conditions while ferrying US-built aircraft to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Programme.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the flower-laying ceremony to Russian state media, saying it was scheduled before Putin’s departure from Alaska. LiveNOW from Fox reported that the white headstones at the site bear the names, ranks, and service details of each pilot.
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Why Soviet pilots are buried in Alaska
During the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies against Nazi Germany. Under the Lend-Lease Programme, Washington supplied Moscow with nearly 8,000 aircraft.
Between 1942 and 1945, Soviet pilots trained alongside American crews in Fairbanks, Alaska, before flying the planes across the Bering Strait to Siberia.
During the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies against Nazi Germany. (Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
The route, known as the Alaska-Siberia air road, was vital for delivering planes to the Eastern Front. Some pilots, however, died in crashes or due to extreme weather. Initially buried in Fairbanks and Nome, their remains were reinterred at Fort Richardson in 1946 order of the US adminration of the Alaska National Cemetery.
For decades, the exence of the cemetery went largely unrecorded in Russian archives.Story continues below this ad
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin with Archbishop Alexei after laying flowers at Soviet WWII graves in Alaska. (Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
In 1990, a delegation from the Soviet Committee of War Veterans confirmed the site’s hory. In 2011, then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev awarded Virginia Walker, the cemetery’s director, for her role in maintaining the graves, which remain preserved with inscriptions in both English and Russian.
Putin’s visit came shortly after his one-on-one and expanded meetings with Trump at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, which lasted nearly three hours.
While the summit did not produce a ceasefire deal in the Ukraine war, Trump said the next steps involve further discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other NATO leaders.
(With inputs from Reuters, LiveNOW from Fox)