Orban has consistently annoyed the European allies with his apparent closeness to Putin and Hungary is in the process of trying to leave the ICC which surely tells us something.

Trump reckons he is a great "deal maker" (though he rates himself "great" at anything of course) but whilst no-one can take away his part in the ceasefire in Gaza -albeit still a long way from actual peace-he always seems to back-peddle when it comes to Putin.

There may be sound reasons why he cannot give Ukraine Tomahawk missiles, whether that be the present limited numbers of them for America's own use or the limited capability of Ukraine to utilize them anyway, but he has gone from being annoyed at Putin and claiming that the US would help Ukraine to regain all its pre-war territories to now playing down his idea of giving Tomahawks to them and talking of stopping the war where both sides are presently. Yet again he has had "productive" talks with buddy Vlad and hopes to swing this with the MAGA crowd with lots of hints about trade deals to re-enforce his "America First" message.

Zelensky, meanwhile, having learnt his lesson after that appalling first televised meeting at the White House where both the Orange One and his mascara wearing side-kick berated him for not being "grateful" enough, is keeping stumm. He has kept up with the only real tactic that works with this POTUS (flattery) but I have a nasty feeling that if the Putin/Trump meeting does go ahead in Hungary, then Russia will pretty much get what it wants and Zelensky will be forced to concede far more than he hopes he has to. In the meantime, Putin will doubtless continue to batter Ukraine-after all, what have been the consequences of doing so so far?

Looking at the map, to actually get to Hungary. Putin will have to fly through either a NATO members airspace or Ukraine's. For a genuine peace summit doubtless permission will be granted for this-though I think he might still be wise to try and avoid Poland..