Clearly the status of US efforts to find peace in Ukraine have stalled to the point of dying, following the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska back in August. Since then attacks on energy sites by both warring countries have only intensified.

The White House in the meantime unleashed its latest round of sanctions targeting Russia's two state oil majors Rosneft and Lukoil. All of this represented an inability to find compromise. But Russia has the upper-hand and saw no real effort from Washington to push Ukraine into territorial concessions in the east - the one thing that would probably end the war. This week Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that the Kremlin is still open to a negotiated settlement. 

The Thursday Kremlin statement was the first on the prospect of returning to the peace table in a long time. "Given the lack of an opportunity to continue negotiations, we will certainly proceed with the special military operation to achieve the objectives set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the President [Vladimir Putin]," Peskov said. 

He continued, "Russia is open to settling the Ukrainian conflict via political and diplomatic means. But with the lack of such an opportunity, when the doors for this have been slammed shut by the Kiev regime, we continue with the special military operation."

Despite Russian forces having made significant gains of late in the Donbass, President Zelensky has continued to try and rally Western support - including demands for NATO to help "close the skies". He has also been demanding that Putin be tried for war crimes.

Since a mid-October phone call with Putin, the question of President Trump meeting with the Russian leader in Hungary has also constituted a stalled prospect.

But for a peace process to be set in motion again, there would have to be a meeting with Trump, the Kremlin has said.

"The issue of a new meeting between the presidents was discussed in this context by Lavrov in a phone call with Rubio on October 20," TASS has newly quoted the foreign ministry as saying. "The summit is definitely necessary, but it must be preceded by careful organizational and substantive preparation. However, this is only feasible if the US firmly adheres to the Anchorage agreements."

So Washington is being chastised here too, in terms of thwarting peace. "We are convinced that the practical details of the meeting between the presidents must be worked out in the spirit of the understandings reached in Alaska," the Kremlin side continued.

And yet by the time the sides to potentially or eventually reach the negotiating table, Russia is likely to be in an even better position on the battlefield, at the rate things are going near Pokrovsk, for example.