The mood in Russia was angry as the talks kicked off, with influential war bloggers calling on Moscow to deliver a fearsome retaliatory blow against Kyiv after Ukraine launched one of its most ambitious attacks of the war, targeting Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers in Siberia and elsewhere.

Whether or not Moscow was deliberately trying to sow discontent in Ukraine, its failure to release political prisoners whose life is in danger and others illegally imprisoned for years was brutal