In New York, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put forward an offer that sounds modest but in fact reveals where the war is actually being fought this autumn: Ukraine will stop hitting Russian energy facilities if Moscow stops hitting Ukrainian power plants and water systems. A mutual moratorium, limited to one sector. Nobody mentions territory or a peace treaty - this is an agreement about what will not be hit.

Zelensky did not pretend to be sure of the outcome. He said openly that he does not know whether Russia would accept such a thing at all. But he set the timeframe clearly: both Kyiv and Washington want the war to end before winter. Anyone who has lived without heating knows why that deadline was not picked at random.

Winter as a weapon

This is a war in which a substation is worth as much as the front line. When a power line goes down in November, it is not a military target that falls - it is the city, the hospital, the lift in the building, the pump carrying water to the fifth floor. That is why the proposal is built around energy and nothing else. The rest can wait; electricity cannot.

The same day, Zelensky announced something that explains the urgency. After meeting the British prime minister, he wrote that intelligence data shows Russia is preparing a new mass attack on Ukraine. That is why, he added, there can be no talk of easing sanctions while people live every day under the threat of missiles and drones.

Russian tactics are shifting in the meantime. Night-time drone waves are now moving into daylight hours too, and Moscow is using jet-powered drones that fly higher - making air defence work harder and the disruptions to daily life longer. Ukrainian forces are striking back deep into Russian territory, up to three thousand kilometres from their own border, mostly at the oil industry. Which is precisely why the proposed moratorium would be a trade, not a concession.

Zelensky also called for a three-way meeting with Trump and Putin, and said he is ready to meet the Russian president at any time. He asked the American president to bring China in too: if he brings in Xi, he said, Xi has influence over Putin. Trump confirmed that Putin told him he is ready to talk about peace.

Who has a reason to hurry?

In an interview with an American paper, Zelensky delivered the coldest sentence of the week. Putin, he says, is neither winning nor losing - because for him human losses are not a loss; it is his society that loses the people. If that is the other side's arithmetic, then "before winter" is a deadline only one side has.

The Balkans know this phase by heart. Negotiations when nobody is winning, and losing is counted in other people's lives. The question is not whether there will be a meeting - the question is what changes on the ground between the day it is scheduled and the day it is held.