capitulation

"When we conceded the goal, we stopped playing," Guardiola said of City's late capitulation on the south coast on Sunday, letting slip a 1-0 lead for a 2-1 defeat by conceding in the last minute.

"We don't want to see the capitulation of Ukraine. Such a capitulation would only buy time for Russia, and Putin would use that to prepare the next war."

President Macron of France was the latest to use the C word, saying on Sunday: "There is only one state proposing a peace that would be a capitulation: Russia."

Russia's position has long been that a ceasefire can only come in the context of a comprehensive settlement taking account of Russia's interests - and inevitably implies Ukraine's capitulation.

Essentially, they amount to capitulation – unacceptable to Kyiv, but clearly – even after three and a half years of bloody conflict – still paramount to Moscow.