Ukraine Talks in Oslo Fail Better

Executive Summary: U.S.–Ukraine–European talks on a framework for renewed negotiations with Russia in Oslo on October 20 failed to produce a breakthrough, but they demonstrated a renewed spirit of cooperation between the attendees.

• U.S. Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff traveled to Russia on October 21 and presented the ideas developed during the Oslo talks to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who agreed to resume U.S.-mediated talks with Ukraine after November 10.
• Russia’s worsening economic situation and Ukrainian long-range strikes have strengthened Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s negotiating position, while Moscow’s continued maximalist territorial demands and rejection of European involvement remain major obstacles to a settlement.

Pessimists have rarely been wrong regarding attempts to bring Russia’s more than 1,700-day full-scale invasion of Ukraine to an end through diplomacy. Moscow broke one workable agreement, the Black Sea grain initiative negotiated by Türkiye in summer 2022, in July 2023. Ukrainian strikes have severely curtailed Russia’s grain exports this autumn, leaving the agricultural sector with a rotting harvest (Forbes.ru, October 16). The only diplomatic process yielding tangible results is the frequent exchange of prisoners of war. Last week, 270 Ukrainian soldiers—many captured back in 2022—returned home after a swap on the Belarusian border for an equal number of Russians (Radio Svoboda, October 23). This track record did not augur well for the new round of diplomacy U.S. Special Envoys for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner undertook. Despite this trend, some hopeful shifts took place alongside the usual positive noises from the participants of these new talks (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 21).

Witkoff started this round of talks in Oslo on October 20, where Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finnish President Alexander Stubb flanked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (RBC, October 20). The meeting was held amid Russian commentators amplifying Zelenskyy’s alleged tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump over the United States agreeing to buy Russian diesel and waive associated sanctions through April 2027, in addition to the U.S. executive order indefinitely postponing the execution of the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act (Meduza, October 11; TopWar.ru; see EDM, October 19). The amount of diesel that Russia agreed to release to global markets is too small to substantially lower prices on the world market, and Russia has not even delivered the 300,000 tons it promised to immediately supply, loading just one tanker with 40,000 tons of diesel by late October (Carnegie Politika, October 12; The Bell, October 21).

Russian pundits were eager to exaggerate the undeniable symbolism of the materially minor diesel deal (Kommersant, October 15). Zelenskyy paused Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for about three days following Trump’s unilateral announcement of an “energy truce” on October 11, but Russia continued striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure throughout the pause (New Voice of Ukraine, October 13; The Moscow Times, October 21). During and after the pause in the systematic attacks on Russian refineries, Ukrainian long-distance strikes targeted other high-value industrial assets, starting with a massive assault on St. Petersburg (Fontanka, October 18; The Moscow Times, October 23). On October 24, Ukrainian drones struck petro-chemical plants in Tolyatti and Omsk, causing heavy damage. The range of the Omsk strike prompted speculation from some Russian bloggers about launch locations in “third countries,” including Kazakhstan (Nastoyashee Vremya, October 24; Lenta.ru, October 25). Perhaps the most disruptive strikes have been on several of Russia’s large-scale data centers—of which Russia has precious few because of its centralized data policy—including the only one supporting the federal tax service in Nizhny Novgorod oblast (Meduza, October 23). The degradation of key infrastructure and supply chains in the Russian economy is progressing so fast that attempts by the government to draft a budget with a manageable deficit make diminishing sense (The Insider, October 21).

This economic context has granted Zelenskyy a stronger hand in the new round of peace talks (Novaya Gazeta Evropa, October 21; Meduza, October 22). On October 21, Witkoff presented the ideas developed during the Oslo talks to Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, who agreed to resume U.S.-mediated talks with Ukraine after November 10. Witkoff then traveled back to Oslo for a briefing with Støre before returning to Washington (Izvestiya, October 21). The only tangible result from this diplomatic effort is a local ceasefire for Oleshky, a small Ukrainian city in Kherson oblast that is suffering from a severe humanitarian crisis under Russian occupation (Novaya Gazeta Evropa, October 24). Difficulties in implementing even this narrow arrangement foretell the enormous complications in assuring a ceasefire along the long front line (Kommersant, October 24).

Nothing in Russian official discourse indicates an impending departure from its maximalist demand for the entire Donbas region. Russian state media has expressed hope that the possible trilateral meeting between Putin, Trump, and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on November 18–19 could yield further concessions from Ukraine (RIA Novosti, October 25). Xi has not publicly agreed to this trilateral conversation Putin suggested. Trump expressed interest in discussing nuclear arms control during a trilateral meeting, so a productive discussion on Russia’s war against Ukraine appears improbable at present (RBC, October 21, 22). Putin may view the suggested meeting as a boost to his image (The Moscow Times, October 21).

The Oslo meeting highlighted that an agreement to end Russia’s war needs Ukraine’s consent and Europe’s engagement (Kommersant, October 24). Moscow remains adamantly against negotiating with the European Union, perceiving the Brussels bureaucracy as Ukraine’s committed ally, but Stubb and Støre can make an effective pair of mediators supported by the European troika of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom (Radio Svoboda, October 22). The main theme of the peace talks, as even mainstream Russian pundits admit, is not territorial exchanges but mutual guarantees underpinning a reconstituted European security system, and this matter requires full participation of European states. The People’s Republic of China’s opinion, in contrast, is of little relevance (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, October 22).

The most recent talks have not yielded a breakthrough. Even the Olesky micro-agreement may fall apart because of mutual mistrust. The Oslo meeting may, nevertheless, signify a more useful step on the road to peace than the Putin–Trump summit in Anchorage in August 2025, which produced false expectations in Moscow and resentment in Kyiv. The only way to break Putin’s belief that his war against Ukraine serves his interests better than any ceasefire is to hammer out a solid proposition for bringing the deadlocked fighting to an end. Diplomacy failed to end the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine again last week, but the cooperative spirit of Oslo may make it a better failure.

https://jamestown.org/ukraine-talks-in-oslo-fail-better