Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov stated that Putin has never refused to speak with Zelensky and would answer a call, adding that Zelensky is free to come to Moscow if he wants to negotiate; this followed a 27 October call in which Finnish and Norwegian leaders raised the idea of direct contact.

European responses revealed divisions: some states protested the Nordic outreach while France has long favored keeping a channel open, and the EU has offered no concrete peace proposals of its own, insisting instead on a seat at the table that Moscow and Washington have not accepted.

With U.S. elite attention focused elsewhere and European governments facing possible 2027 political shifts, the Kremlin’s overture arrives alongside continued military pressure, signaling openness to talks without any reduction in battlefield operations.

Peace comes in driblets in Ukraine

The famous line of Irish poet WB Yeats from the poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree comes to mind: ‘And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow…” Yeats was expressing his longing for the peace and tranquility of Innisfree, an uninhabited island in Ireland near which he spent his summers as a child while residing in an urban setting. And that is how Ukraine’s search for peace is meandering – not in a sudden, overwhelming wave; rather, in tiny, quiet increments, much like a gentle rain or a slow leak.

The ‘leak’ by Russia’s presidential aide for foreign policy Yuri Ushakov is no doubt an increment of potentially immense consequence when he told Kremlin’s preferred reporter Pavel Zarubin on Sunday that President Vladimir Putin never refused to speak with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Replying to a pointed question whether Putin would answer a call from Zelensky, Ushakov foretold, “I think he would answer, of course. Putin has never refused to talk. He........

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