Are we any closer to peace in Ukraine?
After a frantic, often confusing few days of diplomacy, Donald Trump seems to think so.
We're getting very close to a deal, he told reporters on Tuesday.
For his part, Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky, who had looked and sounded grim over the weekend, said there were now many prospects that can make the path to peace real.
There are significant results, he said, after reviewing the results of Sunday's key discussions in Geneva, and there is still much work to be done.
But from the Russians, apart from some discontented mutterings about European involvement and unauthorized leaks, the response has been somewhat muted.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday that Moscow viewed some elements of the latest draft positively but many require special discussions among experts.
Separately, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said it was premature to think that a deal was close.
Last Wednesday already seems like aeons ago. That is when a leaked draft of a 28-point US plan to end the war first emerged.
The plan, whose references to Ukraine giving up territory and limiting the size of its military led some to describe it as a Russian wish list, caused consternation in Kyiv and sent European diplomats scrambling to limit the perceived damage.
In some ways, it felt like a re-run of events in August, when anxious European leaders rushed to Washington to bend Trump's ear after the American president rolled out the red carpet to Putin in Alaska.
By the weekend, the Europeans had drafted a counter-proposal, also 28 points long, which replaced the blunt territorial concessions of the US plan with negotiations on territorial swaps and stiffened the language on security guarantees, a key concern of Kyiv.
A joint US-Ukrainian statement, issued after the talks wrapped up, spoke of highly productive discussions, saying any future agreement must deliver a sustainable and just peace.
Ukrainian officials sounded relieved too. The First Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said the latest version of the plan had been slimmed down to just 19 points, with the most contentious issues – territory and Ukraine's future relations with Nato – put off for Trump and Zelensky to decide.
Despite talks in Abu Dhabi involving the US army secretary, Dan Driscoll (a new addition to Trump's Ukraine team), Ukraine's military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, and Russian officials, Ushakov says the plan has still not been discussed in detail.
With Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff due in Moscow next week and talk of Zelensky paying another visit to the White House, it seems the pace of diplomacy is not about to let up.
We are now on a fast track to something, says Daniel Fried, former US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. To a failure or a fast track to a success, I can't say, but it's moving fast.
The sense of dread which settled over Kyiv last week – which caused Zelensky to observe that Ukraine was facing one of the most difficult moments in its history – has lifted.
But if Kyiv feels it has successfully countered some of the worst of what was being demanded – and we still do not know how much – there are plenty of lingering concerns regarding security guarantees if a deal is struck.
As this complex diplomatic saga unfolds, the focus remains on finding necessary assurances and navigating the choppy waters of negotiation to ensure Ukraine's sovereignty and safety.
