Beginning the formulation of a real deal that they think Russia would agree to is certainly very different from "folding". It does however signal a clear desire to end this, no doubt due to pressure from other fronts:
- the war is losing popularity and we are about to enter an election year
- draining focus and funding from other priorities such as Israel and Taiwan
- pushing Russia and China together more and more
- inadvertently pushing oil and gas suppliers more and more into multi-decade contracts with China
- inadvertently pushing the expansion of RMB use in trade settlement and foreign exchange reserves
No doubt they hope that it's not too late to reverse or slow some of these trends, so it just becomes a question of "at what cost"?
