US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky are due to meet in Oslo, with relations on the slide between the Ukrainian leader and US President Donald Trump.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Zelensky had asked Oslo and neighbouring Finland to organise the meeting with the US and European allies “at a critical time for Ukraine”.
Ahead of the meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected as “scandalous” and “outrageous” accusations that Ukrainians were dying because the US was withholding intelligence from Kyiv.
He was speaking after Zelensky’s military technical adviser, Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, told the BBC that the lack of reliable US warnings meant lives were being lost.
“This looks very strange,” said Beskrestnov. “Sometimes we receive this information before the attack, another time we [do] not.”
Relations between Kyiv and the US have soured in recent weeks to the extent that Trump has said it is time for Ukraine to get a new president, and most recently “for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine”.
Zelensky first met the Norwegian prime minister and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, ahead of his planned talks in person with Witkoff, with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner taking part via video link.
Støre said the aim of the Oslo talks was to steer relations towards “a more constructive path”. He told reporters at the parliament in Norway that they wanted to ensure that the war ended diplomatically with a lasting and just peace.
The Ukrainian leader said earlier he had had a “constructive discussion” with Rubio about the need for US early warnings, missile interceptors and SpaceX’s Starlink internet network.
Credit: bbc.com
