“The contacts with the Americans came to nothing,” a senior Russian source with knowledge of the discussions in late 2023 and early 2024 told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

A second Russian source with knowledge of the contacts told Reuters that the Americans told Moscow, via the intermediaries, they would not discuss a possible ceasefire without the participation of Ukraine and so the contacts ended in failure.

A third source with knowledge of the discussions said: “Everything fell apart with the Americans.” The source said that the Americans did not want to pressure Ukraine.

I’m pretty sure that we’ve repeatedly said that we weren’t going to cut a deal with Russia without Ukraine being involved since the war kicked off.

“Putin said: ‘I knew they wouldn’t do anything’,” another of the Russian sources said. “They cut off the root of the contacts which had taken two months to create.”

Well, evidently Putin wasn’t ignoring what we said.

“Our favorite flavor of ice cream is vanilla.”

“Is your favorite flavor chocolate?”

“No, our favorite flavor is vanilla.”

“Is it not vanilla?”

“It’s vanilla.”

(quietly) “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

“Vanilla.”

“I knew it, I knew that it was vanilla! All this time I knew that it was vanilla!”

Unparalleled insight there.