ATHENS — Nearly four weeks into Russia’s ill-conceived, poorly executed, and unapologetically nasty war on Ukraine, a swift and easy way out of Europe’s persistent nightmare is proving elusive at best. 

A Ukrainian presidential advisor, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in a televised interview Tuesday that the war “could end in two or three weeks” — but many other things could happen too. Ever cryptic and reliably merciless, Vladimir Putin likely has more in store for Ukraine in the coming days than peace talks with the Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelensky, even as the latter has renewed his call for dialogue with the Russian strongman. 

Today, for example, the Times of London reports that the Kremlin plans to crush protests in occupied Kherson. A letter thought to have been written by a member of Russia’s federal security service, known as the FSB, said that Moscow was no longer willing to play nice with protesters in the city. 

If the letter cited in the report has bite to back up the bark, the Kremlin may imminently dispense a  “great terror” on Kherson by kidnapping residents and taking them across the Russian border, or so an FSB whistleblower has claimed. Residents have been gathering daily in Kherson’s Freedom Square to protest the Russian occupation and were fired upon as recently as yesterday.

“Even if we have to deport as many as half the city — we are ready for that,” the letter warned.

In the meantime, Ukrainian forces fought off continuing Russian efforts to occupy Mariupol and claimed to have retaken a strategic suburb of Kiev on Tuesday, AP reported, mounting a defense so dogged that it is stoking fears Mr. Putin will escalate the war to new heights. 

“Putin’s back is against the wall,” President Biden, who is heading to Europe this week to meet with allies, said. “And the more his back is against the wall, the greater the severity of the tactics he may employ.”

Early Tuesday, Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces from the Kiev suburb of Makariv after a fierce battle, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, and the regained territory allowed Ukrainian forces to retake control of a key highway and block Russian troops from surrounding the capital from the northwest. 

Kyiv Independent said that the main warehouse of Farmak, one of Ukraine’s largest pharmaceutical companies, burned down during the hostilities. The defense ministry said that Russian forces partially took other northwest suburbs — Bucha, Hostomel, and Irpin — some of which have been under attack almost since Russia invaded nearly a month ago. 

An unidentified Western official told the AP that while Ukrainian resistance has brought much of Russia’s advance to a halt, it has not sent Moscow’s forces into retreat.

Local officials in Mariupol say that Russia has rained 50 to 100 bombs a day there, destroying between 80 percent and 90 percent of the city, the Wall Street Journal reported. The strategic location of the Black Sea port city, which prior to the Russian invasion had a population of more than 400,000, figures prominently in the brutal assault on its infrastructure and the dwindling but defiant population that has refused to surrender. 

There are political factors too. German broadcaster Deutsche Welle has reported that Mariupol is where the Azov Battalion, which is part of the Ukrainian National Guard, has set up its headquarters. While its fighters are well-trained, DW reports, “the unit is composed of nationalists and far-right radicals” and “its very existence is one of the pretexts Russia has used for its war against Ukraine.” 

On Tuesday afternoon Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian plane bombing the city, according to the Mariopol City Council’s Telegram account. The council did not specify if it was the Azovs or another battalion that had successful destroyed the bomber.

Attacks on civilians at various points around Ukraine are almost too numerous to track with accuracy, but Reuters reported incidents such as a Russian tank shooting at a car in Kharkiv, killing two adults and a child; in Sumy, Russian forces fired at a 59-year-old woman and her husband who were riding their bicycles to a hospital, killing the woman; and rocket strikes destroyed a railway station in the central-eastern Dnipro region, killing one person and damaging rails enough to prevent train passage indefinitely, a regional governor said.

Explosions and bursts of gunfire shook Kiev, and heavy artillery fire could be heard from the northwest, AP reported. What’s happening on the ground doesn’t give much cause for optimism; the Daily Mail reports that satellite imagery released on Friday appears to show Russian mines planted northwest of the capital, as the “Kremlin’s forces appear to be digging in a strong defensive position around Kyiv.” 

Is Moscow now sending killer drones into the skies above Kiev? Le Figaro reported that at least one person, possibly a Ukrainian soldier, was killed Tuesday in a drone strike on a building in the capital, according to an eyewitness working for the Agence France-Presse. 

Several “kamikaze” drones targeted a seven-story building of the National Academy of Sciences in the northwestern section of the city, according to the French newspaper’s report, and rescue workers retrieved “at least one body clad in military uniform” from the ensuing fire. 

A Ukrainian military intelligence officer on the scene said the drones used were Russian Orlan UAVs, and claimed that three people were killed in the attack.