Today, President Donald Trump sat down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska for their high-stakes talks on the war in Ukraine. Behind them, a banner read “Pursuing Peace” but noticeably missing from the table? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country is the one under Russian attack. Host Yasmin Vossoughian is joined by former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and NBC News International Affairs Analyst Michael McFaul to unpack what we might expect from this meeting and what he thinks Putin is like behind closed doors. NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel is also with us from Ukraine, with reaction from Ukrainians who feel shut out of a meeting that could decide the fate of their country.

So an NBC News correspondent and a Fed president walk into a donut factory… Co-host Brian Cheung takes a tour of a Springfield, Illinois donut factory with Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee. The visit will help Goolsbee decide his vote when the Federal Reserve meets to set interest rates next month. And: a massive new detention center is set to open in Texas this week, but it’s running into roadblocks. NBC News Senior Homeland Security Correspondent Julia Ainsley joins to explain why it presents a problem for President Trump’s deportation goals.

With Trump and Putin set to meet in the Last Frontier Friday, Europe’s big hitters jumped on a Germany-hosted Zoom. Trump was on too, but here’s the twist: none of them are invited to the U.S.–Russia sit-down. Now alarms are ringing from Kyiv to Brussels over what a deal could mean for Ukraine and Europe’s defense if Putin pushes west. Host Yasmin Vossoughian is with NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, who is in Ukraine. Plus, an exclusive from inside New York prisons: corrections officers were caught beating inmates, part of a decades-long pattern of abuse uncovered by NBC News senior investigative producer Dan Slepian.