Trump and Zelensky appear at loggerheads despite Oslo optimism

ByPaul Adams

Diplomatic correspondent

The hug that Trump envoy Steve Witkoff offered Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of this afternoon's talks in Oslo is unlikely to have dispelled the Ukrainian leader's misgivings about the current direction of US policy towards his war-ravaged country.

Zelensky posted a video of the moment on social media, with the message "Ukraine is working for peace. I thank our partners for their support!"

But given everything that's happened this month, does the Ukrainian leader still regard Donald Trump as a partner?

The two men have never been close – that much is obvious – but have they now fallen out once and for all?

Both in rhetoric and actions, the past ten days have seen evidence of a rupture as deep as any in their fractious relationship.

Just listen to the way they talk about each other.

"Zelensky's not a good guy for us to deal with," Trump told Newsmax last week.

The verbal assault has continued this week.

"Zelensky doesn't know what he's talking about," Trump told a reporter on Monday when asked what he thought of the Ukrainian leader's suggestion that striking a diesel deal with Russia put the US on the wrong side of history.

Such personal attacks are typical of Trump's sledgehammer approach to diplomacy. It's hard to know when to take them seriously.

In June, he lashed out at Israel's prime minister, saying Benjamin Netanyahu "has no f**king judgement". Four months later, he endorsed Netanyahu enthusiastically, calling him a "great warrior prime minister".

"Trump can always do another U-turn," says Ian Bond of the Centre for European Reform. "But this does look bad."

For his part Zelensky has generally been circumspect in how he describes his unreliable but vital American counterpart.

But this month his frustration has been clear. Addressing a US congressional delegation, he spoke of "decisions on the American side that are hard to explain between friends" and voiced the fear that "some political decision has been made to slow down support for us."

Answering Trump's charge that he represented the principal obstacle to a negotiated settlement, Zelensky sounded more exasperated than ever.

"We have welcomed literally EVERY attempt by our partners to end this war with dignity," he wrote on Telegram on Monday.

But rhetoric aside, how bad is the relationship?

In some ways, we've been here before.

After their notorious televised bust up in the Oval Office in February 2025, at which Trump accused Zelensky of "gambling with World War III", the US suspended military assistance and restricted intelligence sharing.

The crisis only lasted a week. And when the Trump administration decided, later that year, that it no longer wanted to finance direct military assistance to Ukraine, a mechanism was put in place for European countries to pay for American equipment instead.

One exception, in the wake of this year's US war with Iran, has been badly needed US-made Patriot air defence missiles.

Amid a global shortage, the supply to Ukraine has slowed to a trickle, making it harder than ever for Kyiv to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles.

The Washington Post, quoting an unnamed Ukrainian official, said "only a couple" of Patriot interceptors remained in Ukraine's stockpile, and that the Trump administration had slowed down the process by which US allies seek approval to transfer their stocks.

Similar concerns have been voiced in the past, but the latest reports – not confirmed by US officials – come against an increasingly difficult backdrop for Kyiv.

Earlier this month, as Ukrainian negotiators arrived in Miami for talks with Trump's all-purpose envoys Witkoff and Jared Kushner, they were blindsided by the news that the president had just struck a deal with Vladimir Putin to open US markets to Russian diesel.

Experts questioned whether it would do much to drive down US petrol prices, ahead of congressional mid-term elections (the apparent motive), but as a signal of US displeasure over Ukraine's campaign of long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries and Washington's willingness to do deals with the Kremlin, it represented a stinging rebuke to Kyiv.

Last Friday, Trump went further, waiving wide-ranging sanctions on Russia just two days before they were due to take effect.

Trump said the sanctions contained in the Graham Act (named after the former South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, a vocal supporter of Ukraine who died in July) would hinder his efforts to broker peace. But for Kyiv and its supporters this was another alarming sign that the White House was siding with the Kremlin.

"What the Trump administration is doing is providing carrots to the Russians and sticks applied to the Ukrainians," former US ambassador to Kyiv William Taylor told the BBC.

"It's inexplicable and saddening."

Kiriil Dmitriev, a senior Putin envoy, called it "an important and truly historic moment".

For Moscow, this felt like a welcome return to the "spirit of Alaska", a phrase much touted by Russian officials in the wake of the Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage in August 2025.

Adding to the impression that Trump is turning his back on Ukraine is the allegation – again not confirmed by Washington – that the US has restricted the flow of intelligence and interfered with Ukraine's access to Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service.

Amid an escalation in Russia's drone and missile war on Ukraine's cities, Kyiv says advance warning provided by US satellite intelligence has been lacking.

"We didn't receive it during ballistic attacks for three days," Zelensky told NBC News.

On 12 October five Russian S-400 missiles hit Kyiv, reportedly before air raid sirens or mobile alerts had sounded.

The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, denied there had been any pause in intelligence sharing, blaming a "software problem" for the temporary lack of early warnings.

Similar uncertainty surrounds Ukraine's access to Starlink.

A week ago, Ukrainian officials reported that the system was being throttled, with terminals unable to maintain connections at high speeds, making it harder for Ukraine's military to intercept fast moving Russian drones.

Since the summer, Ukraine has struggled to cope with a wave of attacks by advanced, jet-powered drones.

It's not clear where any order to limit Ukraine's use of Starlink – or its military grade equivalent Starshield – originated. Reuters reported that it came from the White House.

Rubio said "no-one at the White House ordered anyone to slow down internet."

But the fact that such suspicions surface so frequently points to the lack of trust that continues to infect US-Ukrainian relations.

Much of this has its roots in Donald Trump's seemingly long-standing mistrust of Ukraine as a whole - and Zelensky in particular.

A decade ago, Trump became convinced that Ukraine had tried to prevent him from becoming US president. Among a number of unfounded allegations was the suggestion that the US Democratic National Committee had a server hidden somewhere in Ukraine.

When Zelensky became president, three years later, he resisted Trump's demands that he investigate charges of election interference.

During a notorious July 2019 telephone conversation, Trump also asked Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, the man who went on to defeat him in the 2020 presidential election. Again, Zelensky refused.

At the time, the White House was withholding $391m (£290m) in military assistance to Ukraine, a juxtaposition that ultimately led to Trump's first impeachment.

Whether Trump's resentment over these historic slights continues to inform his current policy towards Ukraine is an open question, but it's clear that the roller coaster of US-Ukraine relations has taken another stomach-churning dip.

Following the talks in Oslo, Witkoff is taking a set of updated proposals to St Petersburg. All eyes will now be on Putin.

Jonas Gahr Støre, the Norwegian leader, said the talks in Oslo had helped "to straighten out a few things."

"There's nothing to gain from… digging into what was said yesterday or a week ago," he said diplomatically.

Zelensky said the day had begun with a productive conversation with the US Secretary of State and indicated that the issue of early warning had already been fixed. He also sounded optimistic about Patriot missiles and Starlink.

"I think we will have good results too," he said.

Yet despite the optimistic tone, it's hard to get around the fact that Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump appear, once again, to be at loggerheads.