WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump called upon Ukraine on Tuesday to make a deal to settle the war with Russia, saying Moscow wanted to end the conflict.

“Ukraine has to want to settle this war,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump suggested Moscow had the upper hand in the fight because “Russia is a big machine - they just keep grinding forward, and that’s what they’ve done. They’ve taken a very large piece of land”.

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was in Oslo, Norway, on Tuesday for talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in the search for an end to the war. Witkoff will now travel to Moscow on Wednesday to brief Russian officials about the discussions in Oslo.

US envoy Steve Witkoff meets Zelensky in Norway, will travel to Moscow today

Zelensky travelled to Oslo in a bid to repair relations with Washington, which have sunk to new lows as Trump has courted Moscow.

Earlier on Tuesday, Zelensky spoke by phone with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Zelensky said Ukraine was again receiving early warnings of Russian missile attacks. This followed complaints by Kyiv that Washington had stopped sharing intelligence about Russian air strikes.

“Now it works, it’s great,” Zelensky said, adding he and Rubio had also discussed supplies of Patriot missile interceptors and the US-provided satellite-based Starlink system, which Kyiv earlier said did not work when mounted on fast-moving objects such as drones.

Trump’s recent gestures toward Moscow, including a deal to buy Russian diesel and waiving new sanctions, have sparked bipartisan pushback in the US Congress and worry in European capitals.

Zelensky said he expected to talk to Rubio again in 48 hours.

He said he had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine in Oslo, including “Article 5-like” guarantees, referring to the Nato stipulation that an attack on one ally is an attack on all.

“I am thankful to the American side that they underlined again that it will be strong,” he said.

“There are different kinds of security guarantees which are in the paper, in the document, which Steve (Witkoff) will share with the Russians,” he said. “And we will hear his feedback one day after.”

Zelensky reiterated that Ukraine hoped to discuss key issues on how to end the war during a trilateral meeting of leaders of Ukraine, Russia and the US.

Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said the Oslo meeting had been good and constructive.

“Steve Witkoff will fly tomorrow to Saint Petersburg where he will be meeting the Russian leadership, and exchange ideas from this meeting and the proposals that have been worked on by European and American colleagues, and possibly pave the way for a meeting at leaders level,” Stoere said.

“I think the (peace) process is back on track,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb told the news conference, in which Witkoff did not take part.

Earlier the US envoy and Zelensky clasped one another in a hug as they went into the talks that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner joined remotely.

Request for Patriot interceptors

The US has largely stopped providing weapons directly to Ukraine, but lets European countries buy US weaponry on Kyiv’s behalf under the “prioritised Ukraine requirements list” (PURL). It has also provided intelligence and technology that Europe cannot match.

A source familiar with the matter said most weapons deliveries under PURL continued to flow, but US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has not approved Ukraine’s latest requests for Patriot interceptors.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2026