He even envisioned a grand summit to announce a peace deal.But Putin rejected repeated American calls to stop his attacks. And Trump, in recent months, began to take that personally, complaining privately to advisers—and then eventually in public—that Putin would tell him one thing in their phone calls (that he was committed to peace) and then act entirely differently afterward (by bombing Ukraine).

But considerable distance remains between the positions of Ukraine, Russia and America, as well as doubts about Mr Putin’s real intentions. For now his bombardments continue. The shape of the peace deal the three countries are working on is hard to pin down.