The recent face-to-face between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the G20 gathering last month in New Delhi -- the first such high-level interaction since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, suggests that diplomacy may no longer be a dirty word.
The war in Ukraine is in many ways a proxy war between the world's two major powers, with Russia backed by China and Ukraine backed by the United States. Over the past year, the war has triggered global energy and food crises, spurred higher inflation amid slowing global growth, and heightened the risks -- underscored by Russia's recent downing of a US drone over the Black Sea -- of a direct Russia-Nato conflict.
A ceasefire is the only way out of this military deadlock, but reaching an agreement could take a long time. The 1950-53 Korean War, for example, was deadlocked for two years before an armistice agreement was reached.
