A day that began with open quarrelling between Kyiv and Washington ended with a travel plan. After several hours of talks in the Norwegian capital on Tuesday, the Norwegian hosts revealed that Washington’s envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to St Petersburg on Wednesday, carrying the day’s proposals to Russia’s leaders.
It was Volodymyr Zelensky who requested that Oslo and Helsinki organise this round. Norway’s premier Jonas Gahr Støre and Finland’s head of state Alexander Stubb joined him in the room; Jared Kushner, married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, followed by video. Støre listed the topics: how Ukraine is protected later on, a post-war prosperity plan, territorial questions and the sanctions regime. Stubb spoke of “genuine progress” and said the group had found “some elements of peace”.
For the short term, the leaders talked about air defence, protecting power plants and grids, and limited ceasefires. Zelensky said Kyiv had backed an American idea for an energy truce right away, but Moscow had kept bombing. He floated a meeting of the three presidents and summed up his expectations for Witkoff’s trip in one line: “Let’s see what Putin has to say.”
The backdrop is tense. Trump said on Monday that someone other than Zelensky should perhaps negotiate for Ukraine, and Washington recently agreed to let Russian diesel flow to the US again. Ukrainian officials accuse Washington of holding back early warnings of missile launches and of slowing the military version of Starlink. Marco Rubio, the top US diplomat, called that accusation “scandalous” during a visit to India, although he conceded that some Patriot interceptors might not have reached Kyiv yet.
Russia did not sound enthusiastic. Sergei Lavrov promised to listen to whatever the Americans bring, while ruling out any political compromise on Moscow’s side. Støre, for his part, insisted that a durable settlement needs Europe at the table, because Europeans will be the ones living with any deal’s fallout.
