Whenever Donald Trump boasts of solving eight wars in eight months, the US president always adds a sigh of regret and repeats that he thought Ukraine and Russia would be the easiest one to solve. He did it again at Monday's signing in Egypt of the plan to end the war in Gaza. So if rolling out the red carpet in Alaska and bringing Vladimir Putin in from the cold didn't work, what will?

More pressure on Russia, it seems, with NATO allies like Germany pledging to purchase military hardware for Ukraine that's made in the USA. We ask about those Tomahawk long-range missiles that will figure top of Volodymyr Zelensky's wish list when he travels to the White House on Friday.

The Oval Office dumpster fire that was their first encounter back in February is now a fading memory. And since Trump divides the world into winners and losers, could his calculus be shifting, what with Ukraine resisting Russia's summer onslaught and hurting Moscow's pocketbook with successful long-range drone strikes against oil installations deep inside enemy territory?

We ask about momentum and prospects for what's already a very, very long war.

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Daniel Whittington, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.