British wartime leader Winston Churchill once said he was an optimist, as there was no point being anything else. The year ahead in Ukraine has given rise to wild, perhaps wilful, positivity from Kyiv and – publicly at least – in parts of NATO that the incoming Trump White House can effect meaningful,

Experts fear deal between US president-elect and his Russian counterpart would ‘enshrine aggression as a legitimate way to redraw borders’

Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump now concede that the Ukraine war will take months or even longer to resolve, a sharp reality check on his biggest foreign policy promise — to strike a peace deal on his first day in the White House.