Zelensky flies to Oslo to meet Witkoff, as the Kremlin says it hopes the envoy will brief Putin next

The meeting in Oslo is an attempt to stop a rupture from becoming a break.

President Volodymyr Zelensky flew to Norway on Tuesday to meet US special envoy Steve Witkoff, trying to repair ties with Washington that have deteriorated sharply over the past two weeks as President Donald Trump has increasingly courted Moscow. Representatives from the E4, Britain, France, Germany and Poland, were expected at the talks, along with officials from the European Union and NATO. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said the goal of hosting the meetings was “to steer the diplomatic efforts onto a more constructive path.”

Zelensky said he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio about ballistic missile interceptors, early warning of Russian missile attacks and “the situation with Starlink and Starshield, which needs to be restored,” referring to the SpaceX satellite system that guides Ukrainian drones. “Of course, all of this comes against the backdrop of our diplomatic efforts to end this horrific war and the constant killing of people,” he wrote on X. Kyiv says Washington has lately failed to provide early warning notification of Russian missile launches and has throttled the satellite links its drones depend on.

The backdrop is Monday's statement from the president. “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine,” Trump said, adding that Zelensky is not helping matters much and calling on Kyiv to find somebody else to negotiate. Trump has waived sanctions on Russia in what he says is an effort to lower US fuel prices, under an agreement on Russian diesel supplies that alarmed Ukraine and its European allies.

Moscow, meanwhile, is waiting for its own briefing. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that Russia hoped a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Witkoff could be organised in the near future, so the American negotiators could brief Putin on their contacts with the Ukrainians and the Europeans and continue the exchange of views between Washington and Moscow. “We consider such meetings to be of great importance on every occasion; they are always timely and very substantive, and we greatly appreciate the mediation efforts of the American negotiators,” Peskov said. Some US media have reported that Witkoff may meet Putin on Wednesday in St Petersburg. That meeting has not been confirmed, as of October 20.