From a Washington Post column by David Ignatius headlined “Putin demands we listen to him. The US should take him up on it.”:

The need for more diplomacy between Russia and the United States is screamingly obvious. But it should focus on preventing a catastrophic conflict between the two countries, rather than a fruitless effort to halt the Ukraine war.

The Ukraine conflict, for all its horror, simply isn’t ripe for a diplomatic settlement. Ukraine is advancing on the battlefield, and Russia, for all its nuclear saber-rattling, is in disarray. A defiant Ukraine wants to regain all its territory, while Russia refuses to withdraw. So, there’s no middle ground, for now.