A game with no end in sight?

After days of offers, counter-offers, ultimatums and deflections, the path to peace in Ukraine seems as unclear as it was before

- By Shaun Walker

Last week began with four European leaders standing defiantly in Kyiv with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, issuing an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin: sign a ceasefire or, together with Donald Trump, we will force you to do so, with sanctions and other tough measures.

There followed a series of offers, counter-offers, ultimatums and deflections, in a dizzying week of highstakes diplomacy that often resembled geopolitical poker.

Halfway through the week, the Guardian spent an hour with Zelenskyy, with three other European journalists, in his office in Kyiv. He had just made the surprise announcement that he would travel to Turkey personally for talks, and challenged Putin to join him. It was a dramatic raising of the stakes, and we asked if he felt a bit like he was playing poker. He said: "With several people at once." It had started well for Zelenskyy, with Keir Starmer, France's Emmanuel Macron, the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and Poland's Donald Tusk all in Kyiv. The five men huddled on a sofa as Macron called Trump, who had just woken up. Trump, the Guardian understands, was pleased the five had met but did not offer any firm commitments to sign up to sanctions if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire.

Nonetheless, in a press conference in Kyiv, Macron and Starmer portrayed the call as if everyone was on the same page. They gave Putin an ultimatum, until Monday night, to begin a ceasefire. The ball was now in Putin's court, although past experience suggested he would not react well to an ultimatum.

An early sign came from Dmitry Medvedev, formerly Russia's president and now its loudest nationalist social media troll. "They are blurting out threats against Russia... You think that's smart, eh? Shove these peace plans up your pangender arses," he wrote on X.