"We are very patient, but our patience is at an end." That was how Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov summed up the outcome of last week's intense round of diplomatic negotiations between his country and the West, a last-ditch effort to avert another war in Ukraine.

Of course, as someone who has been running Russia's foreign policy machinery for almost two decades, Mr Lavrov knows fully well that a bit of exaggeration, if applied at the right moment, can be conducive to a good result. So, there may be an element of manufactured drama in what the head of Russia's diplomacy is saying.