The people of Oleshky are out. On Saturday the evacuees crossed into Chernihiv region, and the route is the detail I keep turning over. They left a Russian-occupied town in the south, were carried through Russia, then Belarus, and finally driven across Ukraine’s northern border. On a map that’s a gigantic loop to end up in a country they were never far from. The only road home ran through the two states that made leaving necessary. I suppose that’s what a local ceasefire is: no end to anything, just a corridor with a guard at each end.

Zelensky thanked Melania Trump again. I said last week I’d like to know how she did it, and I still don’t. The story would be worth more than the thanks.

Same day, Washington approved the sale of 500 Patriot interceptors, $2.1bn, paid for entirely by Europe and Canada, and Zelensky says delivery could take “several years.” Put that next to the weeds people were cooking in October. A besieged town can be emptied in a few days by one well-placed favor, while the missile that would stop the next strike on Dnipro, where 200,000 households lost power overnight, sits in a queue measured in years. “Approved” is doing the work of “arrived” in that headline, and I think that’s on purpose.

Smaller and funnier: the G20 family photo was cancelled over the presence of a Russian minister, and Lavrov is calling Poland’s invitation a breach of diplomacy. When the substance stalls, the seating chart gets the fight.

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