Vladimir Putin timed the latest bombardment on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv for when Sir Keir Starmer was visiting. The British prime minister arrived in the city for a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky this morning when air raid sirens blasted,

British wartime leader Winston Churchill once said he was an optimist, as there was no point being anything else. The year ahead in Ukraine has given rise to wild, perhaps wilful, positivity from Kyiv and – publicly at least – in parts of NATO that the incoming Trump White House can effect meaningful,

Russia will demand Ukraine drastically cut back military ties with the NATO alliance and become a neutral state with a limited army in any talks with Trump.

Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump now concede that the Ukraine war will take months or even longer to resolve, a sharp reality check on his biggest foreign policy promise — to strike a peace deal on his first day in the White House.