A rally in Anchorage against Vladimir Putin’s visit to Alaska. Photo: Jeenah Moon / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA

A pro-Ukrainian demonstration was held in the Alaskan capital, Anchorage, on Thursday, the day before the planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, BBC News Russian has reported.

Several hundred people gathered in the city centre, according to the BBC, as protesters carried banners saying Glory to Ukraine, Resist TrumPutin and Ukraine and Alaska — Russian Never Again.

The demo was organised by local nonprofit Stand Up Alaska, whose executive director Erin Jackson Hill told Ukraine’s state-owned news agency Ukrinform that Anchorage would host another rally organised by another organisation when the summit between the two leaders started on Friday morning.

A rally in Anchorage against Vladimir Putin’s visit to Alaska. Photo: Jeenah Moon / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA

“We don’t appreciate authoritarian dictators being invited to our state, especially not by our governor or congressional delegation. He [Putin] is a war criminal, and he has no place on American soil,” Jackson Hill said.

Trump and Putin will meet at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson at 11am (7pm UTC), Reuters reported. The Kremlin stated previously that the talks were due to begin at 11:30am (7:30pm UTC).

Meanwhile, Putin visited the city of Magadan, in Russia’s Far East, ahead of his trip to Alaska, state-owned news agency TASS said on Friday. Other members of the Russian delegation, most notably Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s special representative Kirill Dmitriev, have already arrived in Anchorage.

The Russian delegation will also include Defence Minister Andrey Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and senior Putin aide Yury Ushakov. Ushakov described the main topic of the talks as “the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis,” but told journalists on Thursday that the Russian and US delegations had also agreed to touch upon bilateral economic cooperation and global security issues.