In the meantime, Russia’s aerial attacks have intensified in both frequency and scale. On Wednesday night more than Russian 500 drones and 24 cruise missiles were launched at Ukraine.
Across the country, as civilians sheltered in basements or on the metro, the air defence guns went to work.
As usual, the government did not say whether any military targets were hit, but the impact for civilians is often devastating.
Last week, a Russian missile hit a block of flats in Kyiv killing 22 people, including four children, in one of the deadliest strikes since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
There is now a heap of stuffed toys in the ruins, and photographs.
From shattered stairways, residents emerge with potted plants and bags of clothes covered in dust that somehow survived the strike. A few steps away, others stand and stare at the wreckage.
A teenage girl said she had left the bomb shelter that morning because it filled with smoke after the first missile hit. Then a second landed across the road and her sister was killed.
Ihor Maharynsky only survived because he was out of town that night. His wife, Natalia, was in their fifth-floor flat and didn’t make it to the shelter. He had to identify her body in the mortuary.
“What kind of strategic target is there here?” he demanded, looking around at a car park and a technical college nearby. “There’s nothing.”
Right now, Ihor sees no prospect at all of peace with Russia.
And like many Ukrainians, he is furious at Donald Trump for rolling out the red carpet in Alaska last month for Vladimir Putin.
“Peace talks with Putin? With this ****?” Ihor wanted to know, with a string of expletives. “It is peaceful people who are dying.”