“We are exceptionally close to the end,” Keith Kellogg, America’s special envoy to Ukraine, said at a recent conference in Kyiv. As Russia battles to complete its conquest of Ukraine’s south-eastern Donbas region, both countries are approaching the limits of what is achievable by military means. The public mood in each country shows little enthusiasm for carrying on the fighting. Desertion rates are high in both. Some 58% of Russians would accept a ceasefire without preconditions, according to a poll by Russian Field. A similar 59% of Ukrainians, says the Ukraine Rating Group, would accept a compromise on a de facto loss of territory, if that brought about a ceasefire. Few people believe there will be a formal peace; but many expect a pause that could last anything between six months and six years.