Two American negotiators travelled by train through Poland to reach Kyiv. Not for the cinematic thrill, but because a plane could not land - Russian strikes had fallen near the airport of the Ukrainian capital as well. That is the image to start from whenever someone says peace is close.

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Ukraine on 6 September, their first visit since the Russian offensive began. Only a day earlier they had been sitting in Moscow with Vladimir Putin. The talks lasted several hours, then the national security advisers of Britain, France and Germany joined them. Everyone came out with carefully chosen words: "substantive," "significant," "encouraging." And then Volodymyr Zelensky said what he actually expects.

The sentence that cancelled out every optimistic statement

"If the war continues - and we expect the war to continue - we are counting heavily on winter assistance, on support for air defence and the energy sector," Zelensky told reporters. In another phrasing he was even more direct: as things look now, the war will go on through the winter.

So Kyiv is not preparing for peace in the coming weeks. It is preparing for another winter of war. The talks on American assistance therefore covered missiles for Patriot systems, protection of the energy grid and a separate package for the winter months, when Ukraine expects a fresh wave of Russian strikes on electricity infrastructure.

The two sides are describing different wars

The Americans brought one version out of Moscow: Putin told them Russia is achieving "tangible results" on the battlefield and expects to reach its war aims. In Kyiv they heard the opposite. Ukrainian officials claim the army took more territory in August than it lost and that Russian forces suffered around 42,000 killed and wounded that month - Ukrainian estimates that nobody has independently confirmed.

When two sides at the same table offer such different descriptions of the same war, what exactly are they negotiating? Putin again mentioned resolving the "root causes of the conflict" - a formulation Moscow has used for years to package its core demands: territory, Ukraine renouncing NATO, and limits on its future military capability.

One word describes the entire deadlock

Zelensky replied that Ukraine does not need promises but "strong and clear" security guarantees - a strong army, economic reconstruction and continued Western military aid. On territory, meaning the part of Donbas Moscow is demanding, he gave no sign of being ready to concede. He described the question in one word: "difficult."

Witkoff acknowledged that both sides will have to accept compromises if they want to narrow the gap. But right now there is no sign that Moscow is ready for territorial concessions that would satisfy Kyiv, nor that Kyiv will accept Russian demands. Some diplomats mention spring as a possible point for another attempt. Others are far more pessimistic.

The best news of the whole visit lasted two days

Russia and Ukraine agreed not to carry out air strikes on each other's capitals while the diplomatic mission was under way. Kyiv got a brief respite after near-constant attacks. Zelensky even joked that Witkoff and Kushner had protected the city that day "better than a Patriot."

It is a joke, but also the most accurate description of the situation: Kyiv's most reliable air defence was two guests whose presence paused the bombs. When they left, the pause ended. Russia rejected a broader ceasefire, and the fighting at the front and the strikes outside the capitals did not stop.

In the Balkans we know this scene: tables, photographs, statements about "significant talks," and then years in which nothing changes except the number of people who are no longer here. The word "negotiations" sounds like movement. Sometimes it is only a description of where we stopped.