Welcome back from what for many in the United States was a three-day weekend. Let’s catch you up.

Senior U.S. and Russian leaders are meeting today in Saudi Arabia toward an eventual peace framework for Ukraine, which did not have officials at the meeting.

The Monitor continues to send reporters to assess what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine. Scott Peterson first crossed into the country from Poland, laden with gear, in the war’s earliest days. Today he reports from the mud and ice of the trenches and from city cafés, taking the measure of an embattled people’s spirit.

Also, U.S. Vice President JD Vance met with the leader of a German far-right party. That came after the vice president’s Feb. 14 speech at a security conference in Munich that left some European leaders deeply concerned about the state of old trans-Atlantic partnerships. We’ll be taking a deep dive on the implications tomorrow.