Speaking in Munich last week, America’s vice-president, J.D. Vance, offered a taste of how the home of fine wines, classical architecture and welfare cheques faces humiliation, when he ridiculed Europe as decadent and undemocratic.

The U.S. offered a draft U.N. resolution that stops far short of a competing European-backed statement demanding an immediate withdrawal of all of Moscow's forces from Ukraine.

Russia doesn’t view sanctions relief as a critical factor in negotiations to end the war and isn’t expecting any significant easing of US penalties, according to a person close to the Kremlin.