Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the crisis triggered by Washington's presentation of a new 28-point plan for ending the war appeared briefly to have been stabilised. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, spoke of substantial progress after Ukraine-US talks in Geneva. On Monday night, Vladimir Putin made his countermove: another massive barrage of missile and drone strikes on Kyiv. The sequence of contrasting events captured the grim essence of the outgoing year.