Steve Witkoff met Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo on Thursday as US and Ukrainian officials pressed ahead with talks linked to ending the war in Ukraine. The meeting came after Zelensky first sat down with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Alexander Stubb, with the Oslo discussions framed as an effort to move toward a diplomatic settlement.
Støre said Zelensky had asked Oslo and neighbouring Finland to help organise the talks with the US and European allies at "a critical time for Ukraine." He also said the aim was to find "a more constructive path" and to "ensure that the war ended diplomatically with a lasting and just peace."
The talks matter now because they come as relations between Kyiv and the US have soured in recent weeks, with questions hanging over intelligence, missile interceptors and other support. Zelensky said he had had a "constructive discussion" with Marco Rubio about the need for US early warnings, missile interceptors and SpaceX's Starlink internet network, while a bipartisan group of US senators last week called for an urgent investigation into speed restrictions to the Starlink network in Ukraine.
That backdrop has sharpened the dispute over what the US is, and is not, providing. Rubio rejected as "scandalous" accusations that Ukrainians were dying because Washington was withholding intelligence from Kyiv, but Serhii Beskrestnov told the that the warnings were not reliable enough to save lives. "This looks very strange," he said. "Sometimes we receive this information before the attack, another time we [do] not."
The practical stakes were visible in the details of the meeting. Unconfirmed reports on Tuesday said the transfer of more Patriot interceptors had not yet been approved, and Rubio later admitted to reporters in India that it may be true that the missiles had not yet arrived in Ukraine, though nothing had been denied intentionally. Earlier this month, Rustem Umerov and Davyd Arakhamia held talks in Miami with Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and those discussions reportedly ended abruptly when the Ukrainian delegation learned that Trump had announced Moscow would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel to the US and other markets, ending American sanctions on Russian diesel exports. Zelensky called the diesel announcement "a happy birthday present" for Vladimir Putin.
Kushner joined the Oslo talks by video link, and Zelensky was set to join his Norwegian and Finnish counterparts for a press conference after the meeting. The government in Oslo said Witkoff was not expected to join them, and it was still unclear whether he would travel on to Russia after Oslo. The Kremlin, meanwhile, signalled that it welcomed the channel he has been part of, with Dmitry Peskov saying, "we greatly appreciate the mediation efforts of the American negotiators."
