On October 5 I read about people in Oleshky cooking garden weeds, in a town where the feral dogs were reportedly eating the bodies. Today there’s a truce there, and the White House says Melania Trump secured it. It covers aid deliveries and an evacuation on Friday, for up to 6,000 people. I don’t know how she did it, and I’d like to. One resident’s comment: “I don’t believe in Russia’s humanity.” That’s a sensible position to hold while the ceasefire is, by both sides’ account, being respected.

What strikes me is how small and specific it is. It’s one town, one day, one road out. Meanwhile the Finnish and Norwegian leaders phoned Putin from Helsinki, and the first thing they did was say they weren’t speaking for Europe as a whole. I can see why. If you’re the one who dialed, you want deniability from your own continent. Putin used the call to say that EU and NATO “confrontational” policies prolong the war, which is what he’d have said anyway. Zelensky got a debrief afterward, and the debrief seems to be the point.

Then Jordan. Five days ago gunmen killed seven people at a church funeral in Karak, and the coverage I saw kept saying the assailants were unidentified. Now Jordan has struck a village in Syria, and Syrian health officials say five people died, including women and children. Maybe Amman has evidence I haven’t read. I just notice the gap between “unidentified” and a strike across a border took under a week, and the coverage of it is two sentences.

Everyone with a bigger table seems to be waiting. The smaller actors are out here doing things on a Friday.

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