US envoy heads to Putin as Ukraine-America intelligence ties improve

Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy, was heading to St. Petersburg on Wednesday to sit across from Vladimir Putin and lay out a set of proposals aimed at ending Russia's war in Ukraine. The timing mattered: he was arriving fresh from talks in Oslo with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky the day before, carrying what American officials were calling a "constructive" conversation into the Russian capital.

The diplomatic moment was fragile. Weeks earlier, Ukraine had publicly accused the United States of withholding critical intelligence about Russian missile attacks—a charge Washington dismissed as "scandalous." But by Tuesday, after the Oslo meeting, Zelensky's tone had shifted. He told reporters that intelligence sharing with the Americans on Russian ballistic missiles "works now." The relief in his words was audible. "We can hear when ballistics is coming," he said, "so we are thankful to American side, now it works, it's great." For a country under constant aerial bombardment, early warning of incoming missiles meant the difference between civilians reaching shelter and civilians dying. On Tuesday alone, Russian drone strikes killed at least ten people across Ukraine—four in Kyiv and its surrounding region, four more in the eastern Donetsk region, and two in the central city of Dnipro. Another attack overnight near Kharkiv claimed two more lives.

What Zelensky and his European counterparts were signaling, though, was that the ball was now in Russia's court. Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who had participated in the Oslo talks alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, said "genuine progress" had been made on peace proposals but offered no specifics and cautioned that patience would be required. Zelensky himself restated Ukraine's readiness to negotiate, while emphasizing that his country was not losing the war militarily—it was losing people to Russian attacks. He also flagged two other critical needs: security guarantees and access to SpaceX's Starlink satellite network, which Ukraine's military had been using for drone operations but which had recently experienced speed restrictions that prompted a bipartisan group of US senators to call for an investigation.

The diplomatic choreography, however, was being complicated by signals from Washington itself. Trump had recently suggested it was time for Ukraine to find a new president and "for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine." Vice President JD Vance, in an interview on Monday, had described Ukraine not as an ally but as "certainly a partner in some ways," while arguing that Kyiv should stop attacking Russian energy infrastructure. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, currently visiting India, acknowledged that Patriot air-defense missiles—the only effective weapon Ukraine has against Russian ballistic missiles—had not yet been delivered, though he insisted nothing had been intentionally withheld.

European leaders were watching these mixed messages with alarm. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told Bloomberg TV on Monday that he was working to convince the American government that resolving the Ukraine war was a joint European-American responsibility, not something to be negotiated away. "It's really a big effort for our budgets, it's really a big thing for the European Union, but we are doing that," he said. Norway's Støre stressed that Europe "needs to be at the table" in any discussions about ending the war.

Meanwhile, the Russian side was playing its own game. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin would listen to what Witkoff had to offer but ruled out "any political concessions." Putin himself had not publicly commented on the latest developments. Russia currently controls roughly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, and Moscow's position appeared to be one of patient waiting—willing to hear proposals but not prepared to move on fundamental demands.

The Oslo talks had included Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and another key envoy, participating via video link. A US official described the meeting as "very productive and constructive," noting "strong alignment at the working level" among the US, Ukraine, and Europe on next steps. But the gap between what was being said in Oslo and what was being said in Washington—between Zelensky's gratitude for restored intelligence sharing and Trump's public pressure for Ukraine to "make a deal"—suggested that the diplomatic ground beneath these talks was still shifting.