Three lawyers for the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were found guilty on Friday of belonging to an extremist group by a Russian court and sentenced to between 3 1/2 and 5 1/2 years, the Mediazona news outlet reported.

The war has reached a critical point. A real peace seems unlikely, but a ceasefire is possible, most experts agree. The question is whether it can be achieved without placing Ukraine in further peril.

Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump now concede that the Ukraine war will take months or even longer to resolve, a sharp reality check on his biggest foreign policy promise — to strike a peace deal on his first day in the White House.

On the campaign trail last year, candidate Donald Trump, time after time, not only suggested he could swiftly bring an end to Russia’s unlawful war against Ukraine, but at times even insisted he could—and would—do it before being sworn into office.