Two American envoys — Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — traveled by train through Poland to reach a Kyiv still closed to foreign aircraft, carrying the weight of conversations held the day before with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Their meetings with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, joined by European allies from Britain, France, and Germany, reflected how thoroughly this war has become a shared civilizational burden. No breakthrough emerged, and the distance between what Russia demands and what Ukraine will surrender remains as vast as it has ever been — a reminder that diplomacy, however earnest, cannot eas