Pity poor Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He comes hat in hand to Washington, a downcast look in his eye, begging his strongest ally for the wherewithal to defend his beleaguered nation. Gone are the references to his Churchillian defiance, personal courage and determined persona. Instead, he is seen as an unwelcome messenger and even denigrated on both sides of the political aisle, with dissatisfaction over the failure of the summer counteroffensive, weak accountability for some of the aid already provided and the lack of a strategic endgame.

Meanwhile in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin is licking his chops. After crushing a rebellion from the now-deceased head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, he has secured supply chains of military hardware from North Korea and Iran. His chief political rival, Alexey Navalny, has mysteriously gone missing in the vast gulag of the Russian penal system.