TheChek News Flow

Derniers espaces disponibles pour installer des boutiques dans les artères du luxe parisien, les petits cafés situés autour de la place Vendôme cèdent leurs fonds de commerce à prix d'or aux grands groupes de luxe.

Dernier café de la rue de la Paix, La Colombe, installé depuis de longues années au numéro 2 de l'artère, a discrètement fermé ses portes le mois dernier. Le bail a été racheté au groupe d'assurance Allianz, propriétaire de l'immeuble, par le géant suisse du luxe Richemont, comme l'avait pressenti Glitz.paris (Glitz du 22/12/22). Des travaux sont en cours pour réaménager le rez-de-chaussée, précédemment occupé par le café, ainsi que le premier étage, et créer une boutique Azzedine Alaïa sur deux niveaux.

Le couturier avait vendu la marque à Richemont, également propriétaire de Chloé, en 2007, pour une quinzaine de millions d'euros. Le futur magasin Alaïa de la rue de la Paix a été confié à l'architecte Pierre Granger, qui a conçu l'essentiel des boutiques de la marque dans le monde, et notamment celle de la rue Marignan à Paris, sur 1 600 m2, navire amiral de la griffe créée par le couturier franco-tunisien.

Si la famille Delmas, propriétaire de La Colombe, a fait affaire avec Richemont, Fabrice Couet, qui détenait Le Castiglione, au croisement de la rue éponyme et de la rue Saint-Honoré, a quant à lui vendu à Kering, qui va y installer une boutique Gucci (Glitz du 09/02/23). Le montant de la transaction, jalousement gardé par les deux parties, fait l'objet d'actives spéculations au sein de la petite communauté des spécialistes parisiens de l'immobilier de très haut de gamme. Selon les informations patiemment rassemblées par Glitz.paris, il tourne autour de 20 millions d'euros.

Reopening of embassies and appointment of ambassadors on the agenda after China brokered deal to restore relations between the rivals

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran are meeting in Beijing, weeks after the Middle East rivals agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations in a China-brokered deal that jolted regional geopolitics.

Saudi Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Iran’s Hossein Amir-Abdollahian are expected to discuss a range of issues, including the reopening of embassies, the appointment of ambassadors and a planned visit to Saudi Arabia by the Iranian president.

The top diplomats have spoken by phone repeatedly since March 10, when their governments announced they would end seven years of estrangement and reopen embassies within two months. On Thursday, they met in China flanked by aides, according to a video broadcast by Saudi state television.

Riyadh and Tehran have been divided for decades by longstanding security and sectarian tensions that have fueled their competition for regional dominance.

China’s surprise role in hammering out the detente accelerated a geopolitical realignment in the Middle East, as rivalries that erupted during the Arab Spring fade and outside powers besides the U.S. vie for influence. It also signals a new chapter in competition between Washington and Beijing.

The deal takes on some of the most sensitive issues between two countries, including Iranian support for Houthi rebels in Yemen. In the weeks since it was announced, Saudi Arabia has also neared an agreement to restore diplomatic ties with Syria, which embraced Iran over the past decade of civil war. Those negotiations were mediated by Russia, leaving the U.S. on the sidelines of another major development in the Middle East.

In an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this week, CIA Director William Burns expressed frustration with the Saudis, according to people familiar with the matter. He told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that the U.S. has felt blindsided by Riyadh’s rapprochement with Iran and Syria—countries that remain heavily sanctioned by the West—under the auspices of Washington’s global rivals.

A U.S. official said Mr. Burns discussed cooperation on intelligence and counterterrorism with Saudi officials.

Thursday’s meeting between the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers is a precursor to a high-level summit of Gulf Arab leaders and Iranian officials that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has proposed to host later this year. Iranian state-run news agency IRNA said Tehran appointed an ambassador to the United Arab Emirates for the first time in seven years.

Other high-level talks are also in the works. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has accepted a Saudi invitation to visit the kingdom, people familiar with the matter said. No date for the visit has been announced.

It would be Mr. Raisi’s first official trip to the kingdom. Previous Iranian presidents and Saudi kings have made similar visits during previous periods of warming relations.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in 2016 after protesters angry at the kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its consulate in the city of Mashhad.

For Tehran, the move to improve ties with Riyadh eases the international isolation it has faced since antigovernment protests last fall and the collapse of talks aimed at restoring a 2015 international nuclear deal dashed its hopes of relief from economic sanctions.

Its rapprochement with Riyadh helps Tehran with its longstanding goal of diminishing U.S. influence in the Middle East, drawing one of Washington’s closest partners away from its orbit and bringing China into a more active diplomatic role in the region.

Unlike the U.S., which doesn’t have formal diplomatic relations with Iran, China has close diplomatic and economic ties with both Tehran and Riyadh. It is Iran’s biggest trade partner and a leading buyer of oil from Saudi Arabia, giving it leverage with both sides.

Hollywood impresario alleges Wall Street bank tricked him into revealing business secrets as part of sale

A Hollywood business manager whose clients have included Madonna and Drake has sued Goldman Sachs alleging it tricked him into handing over business secrets as part of an effort to agree a $7bn deal with a private equity firm.

Show business impresario Mickey Segal’s lawsuit focuses on the Wall Street bank’s role when Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, the New York-based buyout group, purchased Focus Financial Partners, a listed wealth management firm, in February.

Segal had hired Goldman to sell his celebrity concierge service, a much smaller firm called NKSFB, which has previously received investment from Focus. In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles county court last week, he accused Goldman of “secretly dealing behind [his] back” by “shop[ping] around” a proposed sale of the larger firm as well.

Anyone “interested in acquiring [NKSFB]”, Segal’s lawyers complained, “may be even more interested in acquiring the larger firm”.

The messy dispute, involving several top Wall Street firms, shows how the lives and business affairs of top-flight entertainers have created lucrative opportunities for money managers and fixers operating in rarefied circles where discretion is highly prized.

Segal sold a majority economic stake in NKSFB to Focus shortly before the latter’s 2018 initial public offering. At the time, the larger company was seeking to branch out from its core business of buying stakes in wealth management boutiques. It was drawn to NKSFB, which co-ordinates the public appearances of its high-profile clients, as well as helping to buy their cars and houses, hire their chefs and nannies, file their taxes, pay their bills, and submit their medical claims.

Last year, however, Segal and his partners decided they wanted to part company with Focus. They hired Goldman to explore a sale of the business, unaware that Goldman was simultaneously working on a deal to take Focus private.

Segal worked with Goldman to pitch NKSFB to at least a dozen potential suitors over several months. At one meeting, held in December, Segal sought to impress executives from KKR with a client roster that includes entertainers who have played the half-time show in 13 of the past 15 American football Super Bowls, according to two people familiar with the exchange.

KKR did not bid but five other would-be acquirers eventually submitted offers for NKSFB, each offering hundreds of millions of dollars. But CD&R’s $7bn deal to take Focus private, announced in February, prompted Segal to sue Focus and Goldman, and has thrown the auction of his own company into disarray.

In an exchange of emails, reproduced in court filings, Segal told Focus co-founder Lenny Chang that an “amicable meeting” was impossible. He suggested buying back Focus’s share of NKSFB “at a substantial discount”, saying it “may be the only way to stop a nuclear war”.

But Chang wrote: “We would not sell at a discount.”

Focus maintains that it was not seeking to stop the sale of NKSFB. In a letter, a Focus lawyer told Segal that “the sales process should be moving to the second round, but has been delayed by your disruptive actions”.

Focus said in a statement that Segal’s lawsuit was without merit, and accused him of “attempting to take advantage of Focus’ pending go-private acquisition to increase the economics he derives from the Focus partnership”.

Goldman said it had acted fairly and honestly, and also dismissed the lawsuit as meritless. “[We] had every incentive to achieve the best outcomes for both our clients, and it is absurd to suggest otherwise,” the bank added.

Fintechs face reckoning over customer service

Regulators crack down after complaints mushroom about digital money services

In early 2023, John started to get calls about unpaid bills from longtime business contacts. The business was fine, he says. The problem was his bank, Revolut, which froze his account without notification.

“I was horrified,” he says of his reaction when he checked his accounts with Europe’s leading fintech and found that none of his December direct debits had gone out.

“I was ringing people, saying I’m really sorry,” says John, not his real name as he asked the FT not to disclose his identity. “I had to do this dozens of times . . . My grandfather had this business. There are people dealing with us since his time who won’t do business with us any more.”

After many fruitless sessions with Revolut’s messaging service, John says he still doesn’t know why the online-only group froze his account and denied him access to balances that grew to over €1mn as money was paid in but blocked from going out.

“We couldn’t get a human being,” says the Irish-based businessman. He does not think he breached any anti-money-laundering rules, under which banks can suspend accounts without giving reasons. His account flows were in line with what he had advised Revolut to expect, he says.

The account was eventually unfrozen. Revolut says it typically freezes accounts if requests for information are ignored, and that it would always give warnings first. After an internal review, Revolut found his experience “hasn’t been as smooth and positive as we aim to provide” and offered him £75 compensation. John left Revolut.

He is far from alone in his disillusionment with one of finance’s newest frontiers, where fintechs offer online-only services in everything from payments, currency conversion, lending, investing, crypto and, in Revolut’s case, hotel and vacation home rental.

John’s experience also shows that problems that emerge in the early stages of a digital company’s life do not necessarily fade as the business grows, even when they turn into fully-fledged licensed banks, as Revolut did in the eurozone in 2019 and now hopes to do in the UK.

The sharp rise of online payments firms and digital-only banks has brought consumers increased choice, speedy technology and lower costs.

But their advance has been accompanied by growing complaints in the UK and EU, as users are hit by everyday mishaps and by financial fraudsters. The problems, disgruntled clients say, are exacerbated by patchy customer services and incomplete consumer protections covering companies licensed as so-called e-money providers, as opposed to banks.

In the UK, these e-money firms, numbering 291, have general obligations to treat customers well and are bound by rules on safeguarding customer funds and operating prudently. But they are not subject to the specific regulations governing banks on matters such as record keeping, outsourcing and risk management.

Payment firms sit outside the UK’s financial services compensation scheme, so if they collapse, customers are not automatically rescued. E-money firms’ clients can also fare worse if they are duped into sending money to scammers, a fast-growing crime known as authorised push payment fraud. These firms have not joined the big banks in a voluntary “no blame” accord, to increase reimbursement to tricked customers.

The Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, has become increasingly concerned, warning last month that it would close payment companies unless they addressed issues generating an “unacceptable risk of harm” to customers.

Complaints about e-money issues are mounting. The UK Financial Services Ombudsman handled nearly 10,000 such claims in the past two years, nearly four times as many as in 2019 and 2020 combined. These include complaints against traditional banks, digital banks and others offering e-money services, as well as specialist e-money firms.

The ombudsman has generally upheld a higher proportion of e-money complaints than its average rate in recent years, suggesting there are more legitimate gripes than with other products.

A similar story is playing out in Ireland, where Revolut in February warned customers to be alert to phishing scams after a surge in attacks and the Irish ombudsman is reportedly dealing with a jump in complaints, though it has not published details.

In the UK, Revolut, with 6mn customers, is the biggest target for client disputes. In 2022, Revolut’s tally of 1,930 FOS complaints was nearly five times that of the second most complained about e-money firm, Wise, which had 409.

E-money companies argue that rising complaint numbers simply reflect the sector’s rapid growth. Revolut says its 2021 and 2022 complaints per 1,000 customers were “comparable” with complaint rates at digital bank Starling, which were 7 per cent lower than Revolut’s in 2021 and 6 per cent lower last year. “The number of complaints has increased proportionally in line with our growth.”

Revolut’s director of operations Carlos Santovena adds: “The overwhelming majority of our customers love our products and are happy with the services we provide.”

FT research into customers’ complaints highlights common themes.

Lockouts. Like John, many complainants say they were inexplicably locked out of accounts, something that firms typically do when they have concerns about fraud or money laundering. As with banks, the law requires account-holding companies to act promptly or face penalties.

Jose Cabrita Viera, a UK-based IT consultant, found that Wise blocked his attempt last September to send $50 to the US bank account of his aunt in Venezuela.

“For such a small amount, rather than coming back and saying we can’t do that transfer, they said we’re going to block that bank transfer and deactivate your account,” said Viera, who felt that he had been treated like a criminal.

Wise took nearly two months to send the roughly £300 in Viera’s closing balance to him, doing so shortly after he had complained to the ombudsman. Wise told the FT it does not support payments to Venezuela and aims to return money to deactivated customers within 10 days.

The FCA identified lockouts as an industry-wide issue in February, calling out unnamed payments firms for freezing a “disproportionate number of accounts, for too long, and without adequate explanation” and ordering them to do better.

Revolut says it has improved, reducing the numbers with no access to their accounts by more than two-thirds in the last six months, and allowing most customers to “conduct limited activity within the app even when restrictions are in place”.

Fraud. Customers often complain when they fall victim to fraudsters because of their own mistakes — arguing that payment firms do not do enough to protect them, or put things right.

Take Ryan Heath, a tech worker and Revolut user. In January, he says he fell for a text scam asking him to input his bank details to pay a small postal fee.

Later that day, he logged on to his Revolut app and found his euro and dollar accounts, together holding about €2,000, had been cleaned out by transactions in Kenya. He immediately contacted Revolut but the transactions could not be halted, reversed or even investigated.

Revolut said it took customer protection and support “extremely seriously”, invested in anti-fraud technology and could “detect the vast majority of fraud and intervene”.

Another Revolut customer, a UK-based financial trader, had their phone stolen last May. Despite locking it, they discovered the next day that about £24,000 — their entire Revolut balance — had been stolen. Revolut’s customer service agents said they were unable to help, but the company provided a full refund after the ombudsman ruled the customer was a fraud victim.

Revolut says it assesses reimbursement claims individually, looking at the customer’s actions and the effectiveness of its warnings to the client.

The ombudsman’s website reveals similar complaints against other fintechs. With Tide, for example, the ombudsman found in a December 2022 case that the fin tech had acted too slowly to try to recover funds after a fraud alert. In a case involving Monzo (which has a banking licence), the ombudsman said in a November 2022 ruling that the company had not done enough to “protect . . . from the possibility of financial harm from fraud.”

Similar complaints have been upheld over payments issues with traditional banks. The ombudsman found in November that NatWest subsidiary Ulster Bank had failed to spot “unusual” transactions when a customer lost almost £79,000 in a cryptocurrency hoax.

A key point with cases involving e-money firms is the level of support offered — or not — when things go wrong.

Revolut communicates with its customers exclusively over a messenger function in its app, an approach it says is “fast, secure and loved by the overwhelming majority of our customers”.

The FT has reviewed dozens of pages of these chats and seen customers passed around by relentlessly cheerful operators who advise customers to “have a nice day” after telling them they can’t give them answers about their missing money.

Revolut’s Santovena says that when it comes to handling fraud concerns, “we acknowledge that there’s a lot we had to improve and we’re improving”.

Revolut now has a customer services team dedicated to fraud, so customers can connect with someone who has expertise. It hopes soon to guarantee customers a single person will handle their fraud case from start to finish.

In February, the FCA warned e-money firms would need to show a “significant shift in culture and behaviour” once new protections come into force in July, under a flagship consumer duty regime.

Lorraine Mouat, head of payment services at Thistle Initiatives, which works with e-money firms, says: “It’s forcing firms to not only say, OK, we treat customers fairly, but also to [address], how do you know so, what are your metrics?”

The UK government also plans rules on the mandatory reimbursement of people who accidentally transfer money wrongly. Meanwhile, the FCA could force fintechs that become banks to improve customer service, including offering phone support, as traditional banks do.

For some, progress will come too late.

Heath has already emptied his Revolut cash accounts and will be selling his Revolut equities and crypto holdings. “I will be leaving Revolut as a customer. The risk is just not worth the reward,” he says. “It just seems like they don’t care.”

And for him, it’s not just about Revolut. “It makes me wary of them all [fintechs] . . . At the end of the day when you as a customer need something solved, you can’t get anything done.” 

Whether many other clients follow Heath will now depend on how fintech companies respond to new demands from customers and regulators alike.

London’s High Court dismisses contempt of court case against metals tycoon brought by a former colleague

Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska has defeated an attempt by a former business associate to have him fined or jailed for contempt of court in London’s High Court.

Deripaska, the founder of Russian conglomerate EN+, had faced contempt of court proceedings last month brought by Vladimir Chernukhin, a British citizen and a former deputy finance minister under President Vladimir Putin as well as being the husband of a Conservative party donor.

Chernukhin had brought the court case claiming Deripaska had breached legal undertakings made to him in 2018 where Deripaska pledged EN+ shares in a legal dispute between the two men over a valuable piece of land in Moscow.

Chernukhin applied for the Russian metals tycoon to be found to be in contempt of court — which if proven is punishable by a prison sentence or fine. Deripaska had denied breaching the promises which his lawyers told the court he had treated “with respect and care”

Judge Mark Pelling ruled on Wednesday that the case against Deripaska should be dismissed because Chernukhin had not proved the case to the criminal standard. “It follows that this application fails and is dismissed,” he said.

Pelling said that it was for Chernukhin’s side “to prove to the criminal standard that the effect of changing En+’s domicile from Jersey to Russia was to automatically cancel the shares referred to in the undertakings. They have failed to do so.” the judge ruled.

Deripaska, who gave evidence in the case via video link from Moscow, is subject to UK and US sanctions because of his alleged links to President Putin’s regime.

In the case, Chernukhin claimed that Deripaska had breached legal undertakings given to the court over a parcel of EN+ shares which had been designed to give him assurance that the metals tycoon had sufficient assets in the UK to pay a potential $95mn legal award from the Moscow land court case. Deripaska has since paid Chernukhin the $95mn award in full.

Chernukhin had sought the legal promises in 2018 after the US government hit Deripaska and En+ with sanctions which prompted fears that the metals tycoon would redomicile En+ from Jersey to Russia and move his assets to Russia out of reach of the English courts, the High Court heard last month.

However, the High Court was told that months after the undertakings were given by Deripaska, EN+ was relocated from Jersey to Moscow as part of a wider plan drawn up by its British chair Lord Greg Barker to get the US sanctions on EN+ revoked.

In a statement on Wednesday Deripaska said he was “glad to see” that “despite the ongoing frenzy, the UK courts demonstrate independence and choose to rule cases on their merits.” Chernukhin’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Argentina faces €1.3bn bill after losing case over GDP-linked debt

Ruling comes days after Buenos Aires lost New York court case over oil company expropriation

Argentina is facing having to pay more than €1.3bn to compensate investors after losing a High Court case over remittances due on bonds linked to the country’s economic growth.

The ruling is a big blow to the South American debtor, which is running low on foreign exchange reserves amid an accelerating economic crisis. It comes only days after Buenos Aires lost a court case in New York over the 2012 expropriation of the oil company YPF from Spain’s Repsol.

The High Court in London ruled on Wednesday against Argentina in a lawsuit that revolved around gross domestic product-linked securities issued in two tranches in 2005 and 2010, initially as part of a sovereign debt restructuring following a financial crisis.

The lawsuit brought by four corporate and institutional investors, including Palladian Partners, was connected to a dispute that arose after Argentina changed its method of calculating GDP in 2013 and whether it was under an obligation to make a payment under the securities after the change in methodology.

The funds — Palladian Partners, HBK Master Fund, Hirsh Group and Virtual Emerald — had argued that after the change, Argentina did not correctly follow the terms of the bonds.

The investors brought legal action in the High Court in 2019 claiming compensation for their losses. Argentina tried and failed to strike out the case ahead of trial in 2020 and it was heard last year. Lawyers representing Argentina signalled in court on Wednesday that it plans to appeal against the ruling.

On Wednesday Mr Justice Simon Picken ruled against Argentina and in favour of the investors. He said the amount owed to holders of the securities was €1.33bn plus interest, of which €643mn would go to the four investors who brought the case.

The separate New York case against Argentina over the YPF expropriation could prove considerably more costly. The claimants — entities funded by Burford Capital — are seeking $10bn-$20bn, according to a Spanish law firm involved in the case, though last week’s ruling is still subject to appeal.

Aidan O’Rourke, partner at Quinn Emanuel, who acted for the investors in the London court hearing, said: “The claimants are very pleased with the Court’s judgment, which corresponds to the clear wording of the warrants. This money should have been paid to warrant holders in 2014 when it first became due, and the claimants look forward to all holders finally now receiving payment.”

Sullivan & Cromwell, the law firm that represented Argentina, said: “The republic believes that the London court has wrongly interpreted the terms of the securities and intends to seek permission to appeal.”

Senior official says Kyiv does not exclude liberation of occupied peninsula by military means

Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of the Russian-occupied peninsula, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the Financial Times.

The comments by Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office, are the most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations since it cut off peace talks with the Kremlin last April.

“If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” Sybiha said, referring to Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive.

He added: “It doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army.”

Sybiha’s remarks may relieve western officials who are sceptical about Ukraine’s ability to reclaim the peninsula and worry that any attempt to do so militarily could lead President Vladimir Putin to escalate his war, possibly with nuclear weapons.

To date Zelenskyy has ruled out peace talks until Russian forces leave all of Ukraine, including Crimea.

Sybiha is a veteran diplomat who focuses on foreign policy in the president’s office and has been at Zelenskyy’s side at key moments in the war.

He said the president and his aides were now talking specifically about Crimea, as Ukraine’s army gets closer to launching its counteroffensive to regain territory.

A spokesperson for Zelenskyy did not respond to requests for comment.

Rear Admiral Tim Woods, the British defence attaché in Washington, said on Wednesday that Crimea would need “a political solution because of just the concentration of force that is there and what it would mean for the Ukrainians to go in there”.

He added: “I don’t think there’s going to be a very quick military solution . . . hence we need to see what are favourable conditions for Ukraine to negotiate and I think Ukraine would be up for that.”

In the early days of the war, Ukraine was willing to negotiate with Moscow over the future of Crimea rather than insisting on regaining it militarily at all costs.

But at present the only known contacts between Kyiv and Moscow are to negotiate prisoner of war exchanges and the return of children forcibly deported to Russia.

Ukraine broke off the peace talks after the discovery of alleged Russian war crimes in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, while Zelenskyy signed a decree declaring negotiations with Putin impossible after the Kremlin annexed four provinces in September.

Ukraine’s president has repeatedly made clear his ultimate goal of bringing all his country’s land, including Crimea, under Kyiv’s control.

But in May last year he indicated Ukraine could consider a peace deal if Russian forces returned to positions in eastern Ukraine predating last year’s invasion and suggested the issue of Crimea would be resolved later through diplomacy.

Crimea has been under Russian occupation since February 2014 and was annexed by Moscow the following month after a mock referendum — a move condemned internationally as an illegal land grab.

Ukrainian forces have recently stepped up their attacks on Russian military facilities in the peninsula, including land and sea-based drone assaults.

Kyiv is also hoping that its coming counteroffensive will make headway south — possibly through Zaporizhzhia province — and sever a land bridge that allows Russia to supply its invasion forces from Crimea.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Zelenskyy adviser, told Radio Free Europe on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces would be on Crimea’s doorstep in “five to seven months”.

But some of Ukraine’s western allies fear Putin could resort to tactical nuclear weapons to defend the peninsula, whose status the Kremlin says is non-negotiable.

“Some of them are so afraid of Ukraine approaching the administrative border of Crimea that they are directly or indirectly trying to postpone this moment,” said Alyona Getmanchuk, director at the New Europe Centre, a Kyiv-based think-tank.

She added that concern was so high about fighting over Crimea escalating that it affected some allies’ “decisions on what kind of weapons to supply Ukraine with and at what speed”.

Getmanchuk also said the Ukrainian leadership felt “that after a successful counteroffensive [in the rest of the country] Putin might be eager to talk”.

But a shift by Ukraine on negotiations could face resistance at home. A poll in February and March by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 87 per cent of Ukrainians considered any territorial concessions to achieve peace unacceptable. Only 9 per cent said they would accept concessions if it meant lasting peace.

The poll found 64 per cent of Ukrainians want Ukraine to try to retake all of its territory, including Crimea, “even if there is a risk of a decrease in western support and a risk of a protracted war”.