ALASKA: An American Orthodox archbishop’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, in which they exchanged warm greetings and gifts of holy icons — is drawing a denunciation by Ukrainian Orthodox bishops in the US They called it a “betrayal of Christian witness” in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war. Archbishop Alexei — the bishop of Alaska for the Orthodox Church in America, the now-independent offspring of the Russian Orthodox Church — met Friday with Putin at the Fort Richardson National Cemetery in Anchorage following Putin’s summit with US President Donald Trump.