Within hours of Donald Trump declaring that the world was "the closest we've been to ending the war" in Ukraine, Moscow's mayor reported that 630 drones had been launched towards the Russian capital region. Sergei Sobyanin said that 163 of them were heading for Moscow itself, that most were intercepted, and that two people were wounded. In Kyiv the night was harsher still: ballistic missiles forced residents into shelters, fifteen people were wounded, and damage to metro infrastructure at the Pivdenny Bridge restricted traffic between parts of the city. The contrast was hard to miss.

On Wednesday, Steve Witkoff, Trump's envoy, met Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg, having flown in from Oslo, where he had tried to repair a bitter rift between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. Jared Kushner joined the talks remotely. Witkoff praised Putin as a humanitarian for freeing the American citizen Stephen Hubbard, a gesture that Kyiv's supporters may read as generous to a man whose forces are bombing civilians. The Kremlin's own message was more guarded.

Yuri Ushakov, a presidential aide, said Russia was in principle ready to resume trilateral talks with the United States and Ukraine in mid-November, after the American midterm elections, and wanted them to focus on post-war security. Yet Moscow also said the Ukrainian and European proposals Witkoff carried contained little of substance. Delay, sceptics argue, suits a side that believes time favours it on the battlefield. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, answered bluntly, writing that appeasement, servility and flattery would not stop Russia's war.