AFTER A WEEK of brinkmanship, Volodymyr Zelensky departed for peace negotiations in Turkey still unsure who he would be talking to. Vladimir Putin stayed silent for nearly four days, before turning down the Ukrainian’s dare of a face-to-face meeting. Pressure on the Russian leader seemed to be mounting even at the eleventh hour, with Donald Trump hinting that he would attend if Mr Putin did, and allies like the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, urging him to “go to Istanbul and negotiate, dammit.”