Joe Parkinson

At the moment, these assets don't make a huge amount of financial sense for the potential buyers.

But if there was to be a peace deal, Europe still needs energy.

Russia can provide the cheapest energy.

And if American companies were somehow in the middle, it could be a bonanza, frankly.

One place where we saw Europe really having to scramble was after Alaska.

— Wyckoff and Dmitriev had believed that the time was right for a bilateral summit, had believed that there was a landing space where Putin and Trump could agree something in Alaska.

And in Alaska, what our reporting found is that there was conversation about some of these shared business interests and shared business opportunities.

It wasn't just a conversation about what was happening on the front line.

Ultimately, Putin wasn't ready to do a deal and there wasn't a deal that the Ukrainians would have accepted.

And that summit ended early.

What the Europeans had to do after that summit was quickly try to reach out to Trump himself beyond Wyckoff in order to be able to convince him of their talking points.

And you'll remember that spectacle of the European leaders sat in the Oval Office facing Trump as they tried to argue their case.

That was one moment where things seemed to move back

a little bit more towards the place where the Europeans and the Ukrainians were comfortable.

But what we learned was that in the background, Wyckoff and Dmitriev were still in touch, were talking a lot.

And ultimately, they had obviously got to a point at which they were ready to meet in Miami.

And the 28-point plan was what came of that meeting.

These negotiations really are never what they seem.

There's always a hidden layer underneath.

And there's such a paradox at the heart of this here because Putin for a long time clearly saw America as his greatest enemy.