Competing mediation offers have showered down on Vladimir Putin, as his defence minister visits troops on the Ukraine border before unprecedented joint exercises with Belarus, due to start in a week’s time.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on a trip to Kyiv, offered to host talks between Ukraine and Russia. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, prepared a fourth phone call in a week with Putin, and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he was planning a trip to Moscow.
