MOSCOW, Aug. 28 -- Every few months a Russian official confirms that the line to Kyiv still works, and every time the confirmation lands the same way: as reassurance about plumbing rather than news about politics.

Mikhail Galuzin, a deputy foreign minister, told RIA Novosti that authorised employees of the two countries' special services remain able to reach one another. It is no secret, he said, and President Vladimir Putin has said so publicly more than once, that even in the most difficult times those channels stay open.

What Galuzin did not say is what the channel is currently carrying, whether it is active this week, or at what level it operates. Those omissions are the story. A line that exists is not the same as a line being used...