The Kremlin announced that the war in Ukraine could end "by the end of the day." It sounds like a breakthrough - until you read the condition. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the conflict would stop the moment Zelensky orders Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the Russian regions. In other words: there'll be peace as soon as the other side surrenders.

The statement came in response to comments from Kyiv that the war could end by the end of the year. Peskov flipped the logic - instead of negotiations, he set out an ultimatum wrapped in the vocabulary of peacefulness. That isn't a path to a solution; it's a repackaging of Russian demands into a sentence that looks good in headlines.

The same spokesman then went on to accuse Ukraine of the civilian casualties - and on the very same day that rescuers in Dnipro were pulling bodies from the rubble after a Russian missile strike. The rhetoric of peace and missiles on residential buildings fit poorly into the same story, unless the story is meant for an audience that won't compare the two.

A Balkan person recognises this game without a translator. How many times have we heard that "we want peace, it's only the other side that's the problem"? A conditional peace in which one side has to concede everything is no offer - it's a tactic. And the real test of intent is never the statements from the podium, but what happens on the ground the same day.