Aprime time current affairs programme; a discussion about Donald Trump’s handling of the war in Ukraine. “He’s doing excellent things,” says a firebrand politician on the panel, before listing White House actions that have belittled Volodymyr Zelenskyy and weakened his battlefield position – military aid suspended; satellite communications obstructed; intelligence withheld. “Do we support this?” It is a rhetorical question.

“We support it all. Absolutely,” the celebrity host responds. “We are thrilled by everything Trump is doing.”

Such approval might not be out of place on polemical rightwing channels in the US, but these exchanges weren’t broadcast to American audiences. The show’s anchor is Olga Skabeyeva, one of Vladimir Putin’s most dependable propagandists. To hear the highest pitch of praise for Trump’s bullying of Ukraine you need to watch Russia’s state-controlled Channel One.

When Russian and US delegations met in Saudi Arabia last month to discuss a resolution to the war in Ukraine, the most revealing feature of the conversation was the exclusion of any Ukrainians.

Less discussed, but still significant, was the inclusion in Putin’s delegation of Kirill Dmitriev, an alumnus of Stanford University, McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, now head of the Russian state investment fund. His pitch was that US businesses have foregone billions of dollars in profits by quitting Russia. Sanctions against Moscow are presented as another way that Ukraine and its European accomplices are ripping off America. Shortly after the Saudi meeting, Dmitriev was formally appointed Putin’s “special representative for investment and economic partnership with overseas countries”, with a mandate covering deals with the US.