But a day later, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council announced that Russian troops had fired at Ukrainian positions at least 10 times. The ceasefire failed to materialise into anything substantive.

As U.S. President Donald Trump continues to push for a swift end to the war in Ukraine, fears are mounting that Kyiv could be forced to accept a peace deal on unfavorable terms, and that will leave it vulnerable to future Russian attacks.

T HE BALL, so America’s secretary of state said on March 11th, is back in Vladimir Putin’s court. Ukraine had just agreed at talks in Jeddah to an American plan for a month-long ceasefire, and in return America has already restarted the flow of weapons and information that Donald Trump cut off following his spectacular Oval Office shouting match with Volodymyr Zelensky 11 days earlier.