Sixty years ago, true statecraft avoided a nuclear war. We need that again over Ukraine | Jonathan Steele

The danger of a quick slide into all-out nuclear war between Russia and the US is less, but in other ways the risk we face is more alarming

Anyone who hoped that Vladimir Putin would declare victory in Ukraine and withdraw his failing troops must now admit that no such outcome is realistic. In a revealing quote during a meeting last week with about a hundred academics from 40 countries, Putin rejected it.

Fyodor Lukyanov, a highly respected thinktank editor who was the meeting's moderator, had the courage to ask the Russian president if he would retreat like the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev did in the 1962 Cuban crisis. Certainly not," Putin replied. To general laughter, according to the Kremlin transcript, he went on: I cannot imagine myself in the role of Khrushchev. No way."