US envoy to meet Putin after 'positive' talks with Zelenskyy

Ordinary readers in Ukraine are seeing the tentative return of advance warnings for ballistic missile attacks after the White House seemingly suspended intelligence sharing last week. That fragile resumption follows high-stakes diplomacy in Norway, where US special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before arriving in Russia on Wednesday morning for talks with President Vladimir Putin. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the Oslo discussions as positive, raising hopes among Western allies that a pathway toward direct trilateral or broader multilateral negotiations can be built as winter approaches.

The central reality of this diplomatic push is that Washington's sudden pivot toward Moscow has placed Kyiv on the defensive, forcing Ukrainian leadership to trade concessions under immense American pressure while attempting to prevent being sidelined entirely. The crisis in US-Ukraine relations began 10 days ago when Donald Trump announced he was lifting US sanctions on Russian diesel to lower fuel prices ahead of the US midterm elections. Trump subsequently demanded an energy ceasefire, which Kyiv implemented for several days before Russia ignored it. The American president has since accused Zelenskyy of failing to end the war, publicly stating that Ukraine needs a new leader and suggesting Zelenskyy is the main obstacle to an agreement. Adding to the friction, Trump has kept up pressure by asking Putin to release Stephen Hubbard, an American taken prisoner by Russian forces in occupied Ukraine.

Intelligence Sharing Restored Amid Strained Logistics

Despite the resumption of intelligence data, other critical military pipelines remain heavily restricted. Zelenskyy told a bipartisan group of US politicians on Monday that the Pentagon was delaying the delivery of Patriot interceptor missiles already paid for by European countries while shipments awaited the signature of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Rubio insisted from India that Patriot interceptors were simply in short supply and needed for American defense and other global flashpoints, maintaining that there has not been some deliberate political directive to go out and harm Ukraine. At the same time, Ukraine reported a speed reduction on Starshield, the military-grade satellite system developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX used for battlefield communications and drone strikes. While Trump denied ordering any slowdown, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk himself ordered the restriction. Zelenskyy noted that the slowdown had crippled mid-range drone strikes on Russian positions, prompting him to offer a halt on long-range attacks against Russian oil refineries—a key demand from Trump—in exchange for Patriot interceptors.

Competing Visions for Peace and the Threat of Exclusion

The diplomatic scramble moved swiftly to Saint Petersburg, where Witkoff was greeted at Pulkovo Airport by Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin's advisor for international economic cooperation. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, joined Witkoff and Zelenskyy virtually during the Oslo meetings and was slated to participate remotely in the Saint Petersburg discussions as well. Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, and Finnish president Alexander Stubb also took part in the European engagements alongside EU and British security officials.

Against this backdrop of intense shuttle diplomacy, the specter of a separate deal between world superpowers looms large over Kyiv. Trump floated the possibility of meeting Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping in China next month to discuss denuclearisation and potentially the war in Ukraine. Zelenskyy firmly opposed being shut out of such an arrangement, stating plainly, There can be nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. He added that any discussion concerning the nation's future can only be acceptable when we are at the table of negotiations. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas questioned whether American negotiators had acted as honest brokers, noting that Washington has spent one and a half years now trying to push Ukraine into surrender while Europe provides the actual backing to keep the nation standing.

As the delegations trade proposals, Rubio maintained that Witkoff is armed with those ideas gathered from Oslo and will let's see if we can make some progress inside the Kremlin, leaving a war-torn population waiting to see if international diplomacy can halt the winter bombardment.