The talks in Brussels were the first meeting of any sort for more than two years within the Russia-NATO Council.

After eight hours of talks in Geneva, neither side appeared to give any ground. But both expressed willingness to keep talking.

Azerbaijan’s Energy Ministry welcomed the decision and is now scheduled to produce 668,000 bpd in February.

Putin has said nothing about any new incursion more than seven years after Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula and Moscow proxies took over large chunks of eastern Ukraine – 14,000 people have died in the ensuing conflict.