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Hello and welcome to Newsare. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.

I'm Tim Franks. The war in Ukraine now approaching four years since the full-scale Russian invasion

might seem like a slow grinding fight of resolve.

The Ukrainians trying to staunch the far superior firepower and manpower of the Russians,

the Russian military making incremental, costly gains in the East,

while trying to bludgeon from the air Ukraine's civilian population and its energy

sector. In contrast, the diplomacy of recent weeks has felt almost frenetic. An initial 28-point peace

plan drawn up by the US, but with it seems heavy Russian influence, sparked a frenzy in Kiev

and European capitals. Ukrainian negotiators have been trying with

the US counterparts to rewrite the text to something more palatable. The Ukrainian president

himself has been weakened by a major corruption scandal at home, which has meant that his chief

of staff and chief negotiator has had to resign. Nonetheless, despite weekend briefings from the United States,

that there was still much work to do,

this was the rather more upbeat assessment from the White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt,

shortly before we came on air.

They had very good talks with the Ukrainians in Florida,

and now, of course, Special Envoy Whitkoff is on his way to Russia. This is sort of the shuttle diplomacy that you've seen from

this administration play out where we speak equally with both sides. We've put points on paper.

Those points have been very much refined, but as for the details, I will let the negotiators

negotiate, but we do feel quite good and we're hopeful that this war can finally come to an end.

Caroline Levitt was speaking as one of President Trump's closest advisors, a man seen also as relatively well-disposed to his Russian counterpart, Steve Wickkoff, is due in Moscow on Tuesday to have another meeting with Vladimir Putin. Mark Galiotti is

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