How events have moved quickly since last Wednesday when US special envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
His mission was to get Russia to agree to a ceasefire before US President Donald Trump’s latest deadline expired on Friday, or Washington would impose new sanctions on Russia and secondary tariffs on its trading partners.
Those economic penalties now appear to be on hold given Russia's willingness to engage in high-level talks with the US.
Late last night, Mr Trump confirmed that he would meet the Russian president in Alaska on 15 August.
Mr Trump told reporters at the White House that "there'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both".
However, so far it looks unlikely that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will take part due to opposition from Mr Putin.
Mr Zelensky's absence from the talks would undermine the idea of "nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine" - a common Ukrainian and European policy (also shared by the previous Biden administration) that no peace deal can be made behind the backs of Ukrainians.
That is not to say that the US is not trying to get Ukraine included in next week's talks in Alaska.
It is understood that during the three-hour meeting with Mr Putin on Wednesday, Mr Witkoff had proposed that Ukraine be involved in a trilateral meeting with the US and Russia.
"As far as I'm concerned, the Americans are still putting a lot of stress on the necessity of Mr Zelensky being present at the meeting," Oleksandr Kraiev, a Ukrainian foreign policy expert told RTÉ News.
Opposing Mr Zelensky's participation in high-level talks at this stage reflects Mr Putin's view that Ukraine is not on an equal footing with Russia.
Instead, the Russian leader wants to prioritise dealings with another great power, such as the US, given that he regards Russia as a great power.
"This is a part of not only Putin's world view, but the Russian political elite and the broader Russian population, that Ukraine is not a sovereign and independent state," said Igor Gretskiy, an expert on Russian foreign policy.
"Certain conditions", Mr Putin said on Thursday, must be met before he meets the Ukrainian president.
"Regrettably, there is still a long haul ahead for the creation of such conditions," added Russia’s leader.
The meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Putin to discuss the fate of Ukraine now brings the US-brokered peace initiative right back to where it originally started in February: the US and Russia talking about Ukraine, without Ukraine or Europe in the room.
There is a very good chance that Mr Putin's "certain conditions" refer to Russia's maximalist demands, which he wants to be met before ending its war in Ukraine.
They include: Ukraine ceding four of its eastern and southern regions to Russia (including parts that Russian forces do not currently occupy), giving up its NATO ambitions, limiting the size of its armed forces and, more recently, for the West to stop military aid to Ukraine.
"Once this meeting happens, it automatically puts Ukraine in a worse position," said Mr Gretskiy from Estonia's International Centre for Defence and Security.
However, he believes Ukraine is working on the basis that whatever is agreed between Mr Trump and Mr Putin would not last long.
"If Russia were to violate the terms of an agreement, it would leave no opportunity for Trump to remain inactive."
Back in April, Mr Witkoff pitched a US proposal for a peace plan to Mr Putin and there is no indication that Washington's proposal has changed since then.
The proposed terms included a US commitment to recognise Crimea as part of Russia and de facto Russian control of occupied Ukrainian territory - terms that were unacceptable to Ukraine and the Europeans - and to lift sanctions on Russia.
The document also spelled out that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO and that Kyiv would receive security guarantees from European countries.
Russia rejected the proposal at the time as well as Ukraine's position that a 30-day ceasefire must first be agreed in order to then start substantive peace talks.
However, after being debriefed by Mr Trump about Wednesday's meeting in Moscow, Mr Zelensky was more positive about the chances for a ceasefire on this occasion. Russia, he said, seemed "more inclined" towards a ceasefire.
So too did Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk yesterday after a phone call with Mr Zelensky.
"There are some signals," said Mr Tusk, that "freezing the conflict, I don't want to say the end of the war, but freezing the conflict is closer than further".
So what has changed?
Mr Trump's ultimatum to impose new sanctions on Russia did not concern the Kremlin, or at least that was its public response.
But his threat to impose high tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil may have jolted Mr Putin to engage in talks this time, albeit only with the US.
Imposing tariffs of 100% (the rate indicated by the White House) on Russia's trading partners such as China, India, Turkey and other countries could persuade some of them to find other markets for their oil supply in the months ahead. Losing that revenue would hamper Russia's war budget.
Already this week, the US gave a taste of what it could do by adding another 25% tariff on Indian imports as a penalty for buying huge quantities of Russian oil.
And though the Russian economy grew by more than 4% in 2024, it is showing signs of trouble.
Inflation is hovering at around 10%, despite Russia's central bank trying to bring it down by setting its key interest rate at 18 to 20% in recent months.
Russian oil and gas revenues also fell by a third year-on-year, according to figures from the Russian finance ministry released in May.
Mr Zelensky has stressed that Ukraine and Europe need to be part of any discussions, as they have done repeatedly since Mr Trump's first phone call with Mr Putin in February when US efforts began on trying to broker a peace deal.
Those demands from Kyiv and other European capitals to be included in possible follow-up peace talks will become even louder if it transpires that the US agrees at the Alaska meeting to recognise Russian control of any occupied territories - as set out in Washington's April peace plan proposal.
If Russia does agree to a ceasefire next week, then that will deliver what Ukraine has been asking for since March and pave the way for detailed peace talks over Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory and security guarantees for Kyiv.
"At this point Ukraine is being seen and heard which was not common for the Trump administration several months ago," said Mr Kraeiv, director of the North America program at Ukrainian Prism, a Kyiv-based thinktank.
"But now, fortunately for Ukraine, the situation has changed."
