Painful as it is to recall at this juncture, it was not so very long ago that Donald Trump – as candidate and then as president-elect – bragged that he could end the war in Ukraine “in a day” – or, just to emphasise the spurious precision and seriousness of his outlandish claim, “within 24 hours”. Perhaps the president was speaking figuratively, after all.
Since he took power almost 100 days ago, it is fair to say that progress has been slow, and that what little has been achieved by the various rounds of peace talks – often with Ukraine cruelly absent – has not been sustained.
