New Delhi, June 7 -- The Kremlin did something unusual on Saturday. It did not push back.

that Washington arms Kyiv, sanctions Moscow, and has "clearly taken a side" - the statement landed in diplomatic circles as a blunt, if obvious, concession. For months, Trump administration officials had insisted they could serve as an honest broker between the two belligerents. Rubio, under pressure from lawmakers, dropped the pretense in one sentence.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, speaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin, acknowledged the remarks without disputing them. "We take this into account," Peskov said. He went no further down that road. What followed, however, was more revealing: "There are different points of view among the team ...