At this stage, most informed observers agree that the Ukraine war will either end at the negotiating table, or remain a bloody stalemate that drags on indefinitely. So what are the prospects for some kind of diplomatic solution to the fighting?

On the surface, there’s little hope to think the two sides will reach agreement anytime soon, with both governments publicly rubbishing the prospect of negotiations. Russian officials have blamed the Ukrainian side for the lack of progress on talks and charged that any peace will be “on our terms,” while Ukrainian officials all the way up to President Volodymyr Zelensky insist there can be no negotiated settlement as long as Moscow occupies Ukrainian territory, and allegedly plan a major counteroffensive to that end. More recently, Zelensky has threatened to abandon negotiations altogether if Moscow tries the POWs it captured in Mariupol in May.

Making things even more fraught, both have broadened their war aims in recent months. Zelensky has now pledged to retake Crimea — illegally annexed by Russian president Vladimir Putin back in 2014 — while Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov declared last month that his country’s forces would conquer Ukrainian land west of the breakaway territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, in response to the use of longer-range weapons that Washington has been supplying to Kiev since June.