First, see the post from the BBC correspondent, Steve Rosenberg: X avatar for @BBCSteveR On Saturday, Vladimir Putin seemed to suggest the war in Ukraine was “coming to an end.” Today one Russia paper claims that “trying to interpret what he meant is like fortune-telling.” And will there, or won’t there, be talks with Europe? #ReadingRussiaJOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. But then note an alternative view provided herein by the FT [here]. I could perhaps marry the two by highlighting that I think critical angle here is that Moscow and Kyiv have cooled on a US led peace process, but I think there are reasons to suspect that both sides might appreciate a European led process. From the Ukrainian side, I think they never really trusted Trump, and saw him just as a Russian asset trying to impose a Moscow plan on Ukraine. They were never going to accept that and were just buying time in the US negotiations until a time where they were sufficiently militarily self sufficient so that they could tell Trump to go and F**k himself. That time is now. And even Moscow has I think run out of patience with Trump – and the half baked and half arsed negotiation process. There is no point from Moscow’s perspective if Trump is trying to impose a bad deal on Ukraine if he cannot deliver it and by pushing such a pro Russian deal it just serves to rally Europe behind Ukraine. That is actually what has happened. I think Moscow is also even more distrustful of US intentions after decapitation operations in Venezuela and Iran, following similar endgames in Syria, Iraq, and perhaps the Kremlin thinks that Havana, and Moscow could be next.