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Hello and welcome to NewsHour.
It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London.
I'm Tim Franks.
The war in Ukraine now approaching four years
since the full-scale Russian invasion might seem like a slow grinding fight of resolve.
The Ukrainians try to staunch the far superior firepower and manpower of the Russians,
the Russian military making incremental,
costly gains in the East,
while trying to bludgeon from the air Ukraine's civilian population and its energy sector.
In contrast, the diplomacy of recent weeks has felt almost frenetic.
An initial 28-point peace plan, drawn up by the US,
but with it seems heavy Russian influence, sparked a frenzy in Kiev and European capitals.
Ukrainian negotiators have been trying with US counterparts to rewrite the text to something more palatable.
The Ukrainian president himself has been weakened by a major corruption scandal at home,
which has meant that his chief of staff and chief negotiator has had to resign.
Nonetheless, despite weekend briefings from the United States that there was still much work to do,
this was the rather more upbeat assessment from the White House press secretary Caroline Levitt shortly before we came on air.
They had very good talks with the Ukrainians in Florida and now of course Special Envoy Witkov is on his way to Russia.