Neither Russia nor Ukraine appear to hold high hopes for the ongoing US diplomatic push toward peace. Trump administration envoys who traveled to Kyiv and Moscow over the weekend hailed “substantive” talks, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he expected the war to continue into winter, and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin raised the possibility of a wider mobilization in a speech ahead of upcoming, largely meaningless, parliamentary elections.
Putin also stepped up the rhetoric against the West, casting the war “as part of a much broader confrontation,” Le Monde reported. Both sides are also still trading fire: Kyiv said it hit four targets in Russia on Saturday night, while its air defenses shot down 82 drones and six missiles.
