Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that he will not wait in Oslo for US special envoy Steve Witkoff and will not receive first-hand results of his meeting with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. According to RBC-Ukraine, he made this remark in a comment to the Polish agency PAP. Zelenskyy said that the additional meeting with Witkoff scheduled for Oslo will not take place: "I am not waiting for Witkoff in Oslo. We must move forward. We must return to Ukraine. We will see what the results are."
Rejection of the "Oslo" format
Earlier, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre stated that after meeting Putin on Wednesday, Witkoff would stop over in Oslo again to report on the results of negotiations to end the war. Zelenskyy's statement effectively changes this scenario: the Ukrainian leader emphasizes that he does not expect the US envoy in Oslo personally, shifting the focus to "returning to Ukraine" and moving forward rather than holding a separate round in the Norwegian capital.
Who gets the results: the role of Gardermoen and the Norwegian PM
Zelenskyy specified that information on the outcome of Witkoff's meeting with Putin at Gardermoen Airport will be received by Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. "Jonas is to meet with the US special envoy. We are in constant contact," the Ukrainian president added. Thus, Oslo retains its role as a transit point for conveying the outcomes, but no longer in the format of a personal meeting with Zelenskyy, instead channeling it through the Norwegian Prime Minister, with whom, according to him, Kyiv maintains constant contact.
Context: St. Petersburg meeting and ceasefire discussions
As a reminder, Witkoff arrived in St. Petersburg on Wednesday morning, where he held a meeting with Vladimir Putin. According to RBC-Ukraine, during this meeting, the US envoy announced the possibility of achieving a ceasefire. These very negotiations became the subject of discussion in Zelenskyy's comments, who tied further steps to what the outcomes of the St. Petersburg contact ultimately turn out to be.
What is at stake: security guarantees and relations with NATO
The negotiations that Witkoff was supposed to report on in Oslo concern, in particular, security guarantees for Ukraine after the end of the war with Russia, as well as Kyiv's future relations with NATO. These topics remain central to the diplomatic track, and how they are formulated following the meeting in St. Petersburg will determine the further dynamics of contacts, which Zelenskyy speaks of in terms of "moving forward" and "returning to Ukraine."
