The diplomatic shuttle around the war in Ukraine picked up speed this week. On Wednesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff is due to sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, carrying an updated peace framework that was hammered out only a day earlier in Oslo with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the leaders of Norway and Finland, and European and NATO officials. Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, is expected to join the talks by video link, just as he did in Norway.
Officials on all sides are keen to describe the moment as a step forward. A US official called the Oslo meeting “constructive” and “very productive”, saying that Ukraine had brought new ideas to the table and that the participants made “meaningful progress” toward a coordinated approach to Russia. Finnish President Alexander Stubb spoke of “genuine progress” but warned that patience would be needed. Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said the St. Petersburg visit could “possibly pave the way for a meeting at leaders’ level”. Behind the upbeat language, however, the gap between Kyiv and Moscow remains wide, and relations between Kyiv and Washington have been bumpy for weeks.
According to the accounts released after the Oslo talks, the package Witkoff is taking to Russia rests on three pillars. The first is a set of postwar security guarantees for Ukraine, which Zelensky described as being modelled on NATO’s Article 5, the alliance’s mutual-defence clause. Such a guarantee would not make Ukraine a NATO member, but it would commit partners to respond if Russia attacked again after a ceasefire. For Kyiv, this is the core issue: without credible protection, any truce risks being only a pause before the next offensive.
The second pillar is a postwar economic plan. Few details have been made public, but European and Ukrainian officials have long argued that reconstruction, investment and access to markets must be part of any settlement, both to rebuild cities and power grids and to give Ukraine a stable footing. Stubb said negotiators had found “key elements on security” and “key elements on the economy”, developed jointly by European, Ukrainian and American experts.
The third pillar is a broader European security architecture, meaning arrangements that go beyond Ukraine and try to define how Russia and its neighbours could coexist after the fighting stops. Finally, Zelensky said, one of the most important ideas is to move toward a trilateral meeting of leaders, bringing him, Trump and Putin into one room to settle the questions that only heads of state can decide. Witkoff’s goal, according to the US official, is to “create a pathway toward direct trilateral and broader multilateral negotiations”.
Pressure on Kyiv, Caution in Moscow
The new push comes at a tense time for Ukraine. Russia has been escalating strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as winter approaches, and Kyiv’s ties with Washington have been strained. Ukrainian officials had accused the United States of holding back important intelligence on incoming Russian missiles, a claim Washington rejected as “scandalous”. There are also worries in Kyiv that deliveries of Patriot air-defence missiles, paid for by Ukraine’s allies, could be delayed. After the Oslo meeting, Zelensky struck a more conciliatory tone, saying that intelligence sharing on Russian missile attacks “works now”.
President Trump, meanwhile, has made clear that he wants the war to end soon and has said it is time for Kyiv to settle with Moscow. According to a person familiar with the Oslo talks cited by Axios, Kushner was “very direct” in repeating Trump’s demand that Ukraine stop its drone attacks on Russian diesel refineries. Those strikes have hurt Russian fuel supplies, but Washington appears to see them as an obstacle to a deal. For Kyiv, they are one of the few ways to put economic pressure on Russia’s war machine, so giving them up would be a significant concession.
Moscow’s position looks far less flexible. Putin has not commented publicly on the latest proposals. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin would listen to what Witkoff has to offer, but ruled out “any political concessions”. Putin has also long avoided a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky. Instead, the Kremlin has reportedly been pushing for a direct meeting with Trump in China next month, a format that would leave Ukraine without a seat at the table. Trump himself said this week that he is open to three-way talks on nuclear arms control with the leaders of China and Russia as soon as next month, which adds another layer of uncertainty to the diplomatic calendar.
The question of who sits at the table is therefore just as important as what is on it. European governments and Ukraine insist that no deal about Ukraine can be made without Ukraine. The Oslo meeting was in part an effort to show unity: Zelensky stressed that Kyiv was “united with our European partners” and wanted the Americans to take those shared ideas to the Russians. Norway and Finland, both neighbours of Russia and both deeply invested in European security, have positioned themselves as facilitators who can keep all sides talking.
Witkoff’s own role has drawn some attention. He did not appear at the joint press conference after the Oslo talks, and when a reporter asked about his absence, Støre replied that it was “a press conference among political leaders”. The real business, officials suggest, is happening at the technical level, where Stubb said negotiations are advancing well despite “a lot of noise in the public space”. That noise includes public disputes over weapons deliveries, intelligence sharing and Ukraine’s long-range strikes, all of which could still derail the process.
What happens in St. Petersburg will show whether the Kremlin is ready to engage with the framework or simply wants to keep talking while its forces continue to press on the battlefield. A positive signal from Putin, such as agreeing in principle to a leaders’ meeting that includes Zelensky, would be a real shift. A flat rejection, or a counteroffer that ignores Ukraine’s demand for security guarantees, would send negotiators back to the drawing board and likely increase pressure on Kyiv from Washington.
For ordinary Ukrainians facing another winter of power cuts, the diplomatic language may sound distant. Yet the coming days could decide whether the war moves toward its first serious negotiation in a long time, or whether the shuttle diplomacy of Oslo and St. Petersburg becomes just another round of meetings. For now, the message from Kyiv and its European partners is simple: the proposals are on the table, and it is Russia’s turn to answer.
