For a couple of hours on Thursday Dublin became the centre of the great diplomatic dance that has stopped and started over the last two years around negotiations to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
Both Moscow and Kyiv are trying to convince the Trump administration the other poses the real block to a peace settlement, while privately placing little faith in the prospect of talks leading anywhere.
Meanwhile, Europe’s leaders in the Convention Centre seemed no closer to a consensus on who would represent their interests, in the event they (finally) got a seat at the negotiating table.
The US double act charged with leading talks to end the war, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, were scheduled to shuttle from a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, to Dublin to huddle with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
RM Block
Efforts to prompt Russia and Ukraine towards a deal ending the brutal conflict restarted in Abu Dhabi this week.
The Ukrainian delegation privately briefed European allies afterwards that they did not get any sense Moscow was genuinely interested in peace negotiations, according to senior sources privy to that readout.
Russia has been pounding cities and energy infrastructure to turn the screw as Ukraine heads into the fifth winter of war.
Kyiv is short of money, lacking Patriot interceptors to shoot down Russian missiles, and dealing with another slowdown in Elon Musk’s Starshield satellite connection it relies on to defend itself from Russian attack drones.
Despite all that, Zelenskiy insisted the position along the front line remained strong.
It was important Europe has a presence in any negotiations, he told the meeting of the European Political Community in Dublin.
[ Europe is reaching for its credit card to fund Ukraine. But for how long?Opens in new window ]
The EPC summit brings together the leaders of nearly 50 European countries, the EU institutions and Nato, so Zelenskiy was among friends.
A lot of oxygen has been sucked up by the question of whether the EU should designate someone to be its envoy, or negotiator, in future peace talks.
European Council president António Costa was name checked by several leaders on Thursday when they were asked by the media.
One senior EU source said the focus on picking a single figure was still a bit premature. Any deal would encompass several big political decisions for Europe, not all of which would sit neatly inside the EU’s remit.
Some will, for example when it comes to agreeing to lift the EU’s regime of economic sanctions on Russia, and perhaps setting a time frame for Ukraine’s future accession into the union.
Settling on a framework to manage post-ceasefire tensions between Russia, Ukraine and neighbouring European countries would probably be led by Nato.
Moscow is keen for peace negotiations to draw in questions about the future security architecture of Europe.
There is a reluctance among European leaders to open that can of worms at this juncture. It could encompass the presence of American Nato troops and defensive infrastructure close to the Russian border, which Putin would love to roll back.
Debating those wider questions, rather than focusing on how to stop the immediate fighting in Ukraine, would mean falling into a “trap” set by Putin, Estonian prime minister Kristen Michal said.
Latvian prime minister Andris Kulbergs said people should not underestimate the extent Putin to which had backed himself into a corner in Ukraine, by starting a war he believed would be won in days.
Russia wants to be handed parts of the Donbas region it has not been able to take by force as the price of a ceasefire.
Those are terms Ukraine will – rightly – never willingly accept. And so the fighting continues.
