After two days of diplomacy – in Norway's capital and Russia's St Petersburg – is the war in Ukraine any closer to ending? "Good and constructive" is how Norway's prime minister described Tuesday's talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and European representatives. In Oslo, the idea of a trilateral meeting at leaders' level was floated.
The hope was that Steve Witkoff's trip to Russia would pave the way for President Vladimir Putin, Zelensky and Trump to meet and agree an end to the fighting. But Putin has shown little desire to share a table with Zelensky - unless that table is in Moscow. The Kremlin says it may be willing to resume trilateral talks next month in Abu Dhabi, but only at the technical level.
In a post on X, Steve Witkoff himself conceded that "there is still important work to do", though he claimed "President Trump remains committed to seeing this war end..." Russia says it is ready to resume talks with Ukraine and US to end war Trump and Zelensky at loggerheads despite new optimism US citizen Stephen Hubbard freed by Russia as Trump envoy meets Putin For me, the most telling statement of the day was from Vladimir Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov. He took part in the St Petersburg talks. Ushakov said that Steve Witkoff had told President Putin about the discussions in Oslo and (as Witkoff viewed them) "new approaches from the Europeans and Kyiv".
The Kremlin adviser was clearly unimpressed by what he heard. "In terms of resolving the Ukraine crisis, there wasn't much there that was useful," commented Ushakov. Later Russian state TV asked him about the prospects for peace.
"I don't know how close we are getting," Yuri Ushakov said, "but things are moving in that direction." It seems that President Putin doesn't feel under pressure right now to end the war. He knows that Ukraine's air defences are under severe strain. He knows that winter is coming and may well view the cold weather as an opportunity to pound Ukraine into submission.
He knows, too, that there is a US president in the White House who clearly wants a bigger, better, more profitable relationship with Moscow. In recent days Donald Trump has paused some sanctions on Moscow, has agreed to buy Russian diesel and expressed biting criticism of President Zelensky. That suits Russia just fine.
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