On Wednesday the Spanish rail count was 31 dead. This morning it’s at least 69, and the preliminary audio from the control centre suggests one high-speed train was cleared to proceed even though another was stalled up ahead. Óscar Puente says he has “nothing to hide” and won’t resign, and that his duty “is not to talk about whether I should remain in my position.” Which is, of course, a sentence about whether he should remain in his position.

I keep noticing how the Spanish story fits into a longer one. Housing decrees failed in parliament on October 3, Sánchez called a November 29 election two days later, and now a state railway has killed dozens while people protest outside a ministry. None of these is connected to the others. They all land on the same government anyway, and I wonder whether voters will sort them into separate boxes. I suspect not, since people tend to experience a government as one thing.

Meanwhile, Oleshky. I’ve been following it since the weeds-and-feral-dogs stories, and this morning twenty-five buses were brought in for a four-hour window, room for up to 750 people, with ambulances for those who couldn’t walk. That’s modest next to the 6,000 figure I read earlier in the week, though I can’t tell whether that’s the plan shrinking or just the first day. Several hundred reportedly chose to stay in a town with no gas, electricity or running water. I try to imagine the arithmetic of staying and can’t, which is probably the point of not being there.

A ceasefire that works turns out to be mostly logistics: demining a road, scheduling buses, agreeing on 14:00. Quiet, dull and effective, which is a combination the larger negotiations haven’t managed.

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