If we assume that it is preferable for both sides to avoid the destruction of Kyiv, and the death of thousands on each side during its storming that an assault would entail, then the moment Kyiv is encircled would be a logical moment of pause lending itself to a ceasefire (another such circumstance might be the encircling of tens of thousands of Ukraine’s best troops in the East, but the isolation of Kyiv will likely happen sooner). The Russians and Ukrainians are already negotiating, and Zelensky has at the time of writing begun to hint that the status of the Crimea and Donbas are up for negotiation, and that Nato membership seems unachievable for now: all Russian political goals and not far from the terms Russia initially demanded to stave off an invasion. It would be a difficult domestic sell for Zelensky, after so many tactical victories against overwhelming odds and after forging such a fever pitch of unity against the invader, to sign away what would amount almost to a surrender, but the no-fly zone discourse perhaps points at one way he might.

The Nato summit last week at which the Western alliance emphasised that there would be no no-fly zone created, for risk of escalating into a greater European war, was a very public nudge to the Ukrainians to negotiate in earnest. There simply will be no Nato deus ex machina to dismantle Russia’s superiority in the air or on the ground. Equally, Zelensky’s increasing tendency to lambast the West for not providing enough military support (despite Nato doing everything but engage in open war against Russia on Ukraine’s behalf) can perhaps be setting up the conditions under which he can regretfully sign away control of Crimea and the Donbas and blame it on faithless external patrons. Both regions were probably already gone for good, in any case. It would be a stab-in-the-back myth of sorts, perhaps with unintended consequences down the line, but immediately preferable to a continuance of the war into a second, bloodier phase; these, though, are decisions for Ukrainians to make.