Russia Bombards Kyiv on Eve of Trump–Zelensky Florida Peace Summit

Striking a capital on the cusp of peace talks echoes Sarajevo’s shelling in May 1995—Serb forces pounded the city hours before the Dayton framework emerged—to harden bargaining chips. Major powers often escalate just before negotiations (e.g., North Korea’s artillery bursts preceding the 1953 armistice talks). The current salvo fits a longer post-Cold-War pattern: wars on Europe’s periphery end not in victory but in externally underwritten freezes (Transnistria 1992, Abkhazia 1994). If the Trump-mediated plan sticks, it may entrench a divided Ukraine akin to the two-Koreas stalemate, recalibrating NATO’s eastward posture for decades; if it fails, the bombardment signals Moscow’s bet that pressure, not compromise, shapes the map. Either way, the episode underlines a century-old lesson: when outside guarantors hold the purse and the veto, local sovereignty is negotiated under fire, not at the ballot box.