Not just "no longer at peace," Russia was holding the US responsible for the "cluster strike" on a Crimean beach on last Sunday's Pentecost holiday, killing several (including children) and injuring many more. The US thereby "became party" to the proxy war in Ukraine (it was an American-supplied ATACM; programmed by American specialists; and drawing on US data), Russia's statement read; "Retaliatory measures will certainly follow."

Evidently, somewhere an amber light flashed hues of pink and red. The Pentagon grasped that something had happened – "No going around it; This could escalate badly." The US Defence Secretary (after a pause since March 2023) reached for the phone to call his Russian counterpart: "The US regretted civilian deaths; the Ukrainians had full targeting discretion."

The Russian public however, is plain furious.

The diplomatic argot of "there now being a state of betweenness; not war and not peace" is but the "half of it."

The West has "lost" Russia much more profoundly than is understood.

President Putin – in his statement to the Foreign Ministry Board in wake of the G7 sword-rattling – detailed just how we had arrived at this pivotal juncture (of inevitable escalation). Putin indicated that the gravity of the situation demanded a "last chance" offer to the West, one that Putin emphatically said was to be "No temporary ceasefire for Kiev to prepare a new offensive; nor a freezing the conflict – but rather, needed to be about the war's final completion."

It has been widely understood that the only credible way to end the Ukraine war would be a "peace" agreement emerging through negotiation between Russia and the US.

This however is rooted in a familiar US-centric vision – "Waiting on Washington …."