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Listen to the global story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts Hello and welcome to news hour.
It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.
I'm Tim Franks Something good may just be happening wrote Donald Trump yesterday morning Europe time about the possibility of an end to Russia's war in Ukraine Later that night,
there was a different soundtrack.
Ukrainian capital Kiev came under another massive Russian aerial bombardment.
At least seven people were killed as drones and missiles tore into apartment blocks and power and water supplies were disrupted.
Moscow said that the Ukrainian military had launched one of its largest-scale drone attacks on Western Russia and that three people there had been killed.
So what are the prospects for President Trump's initial optimism being vindicated?
What's been clear is that there is a renewed push from the White House for there to be an end to the war,
a negotiated peace.
The question remains, on what terms?
A key figure in all this, the US Army Secretary,
Dan Driscoll, a man seen as close to the Ukraine sceptic vice president,
JD Vance, is holding talks in Abu Dhabi today with Ukrainian and Russian officials,
presumably in separate rooms.
And on the table will be the latest version of a peace proposal which, we're led to believe,
may have moved from the rather Russia-friendly outline that was leaked just a few days ago.
The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, was sounding skeptical today in Moscow.