Zelenskyy meets with Trump envoys as U.S. blasts ‘scandalous’ accusations on withdrawn support

U.S. envoys met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Norway on Tuesday, as Kyiv scrambled to respond to an American pressure campaign that has been allied with moves aimed at courting the Kremlin.

President Donald Trump’s negotiators, son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff, have so far had little success finding a diplomatic solution to the war. Their latest meeting comes with Washington’s backing in doubt as Kyiv accused the U.S. of withdrawing support crucial to its defense against Russia — a suggestion that Secretary of State Marco Rubio called “scandalous.”

Witkoff met with Zelenskyy in Oslo, with Kushner joining remotely. Zelenskyy held talks with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finnish President Alexander Stubb prior to meeting the U.S. delegation.

Officials from the U.S. and Ukraine had been expected to meet in Norway this week for another round of negotiations, sources familiar with the matter told NBC News, as a series of recent actions by Trump in favor of Russia left both Congress and U.S. allies questioning U.S. mediation efforts.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters he hoped that it would be possible for Trump’s envoys to hold a meeting in Russia “in the near future,” though he gave no firm indication on when this might be.

UKRAINE-US-RUSSIA-DIPLOMACY-CONFLICT-WAR — Zelenskyy met with Witkoff and Kushner in Kyiv last month.Genya Savilov / AFP via Getty Images

Trump has waived sanctions and agreed a diesel deal with Russia, in an apparent bid to lower fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections. He called Monday for Zelenskyy to “get somebody else to negotiate,” his latest rebuke of the Ukrainian president.

Trump also appeared to downplay the impact of Russian attacks on Ukraine, a near-daily reality for the last 4 ½ years that have killed scores of civilians and flattened towns.

“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine,” Trump told reporters. “They haven’t been doing much.”

It was the latest public sign of his shift away from Ukraine.

Kyiv said it had once again received no early warning from the U.S. before the capital came under attack by Russian ballistic missiles on Sunday, the third time in recent days.

In addition to the withholding of intelligence, Ukraine said it was still facing speed restrictions on Starshield, the military version of the SpaceX service, with no explanation from the American side.

“All of this suggests that some political decision has been made to slow down support for us,” Zelenskyy said Monday in a virtual address to a bipartisan Congressional delegation. He also said the U.S. was delaying the delivery of crucial ballistic missile interceptors, and that Ukraine has nearly run out of its supplies.

Zelenskyy said early Tuesday he held “a substantive conversation” with Rubio, focusing on missile interceptors, early warnings of ballistic attacks and Starshield restrictions. He thanked Rubio and “everyone in America who supports fair approaches.”

Zelenskyy said later on Tuesday that Kyiv is once again receiving early warnings from its partners following recent Russian missile attacks that he said occurred without enough notice. The change happened after talks with his American counterparts, including the phone call with Rubio earlier in the day, according to Zelenskyy.

Two men carry the body of a child in a white sheet, with an empty stroller in the foreground of the photo. — Men carry away the body of a one-year-old girl, killed by Russian drone strike outside Kharkiv on Monday, while sat in her stroller.Sofiia Gatilova / Reuters

Rubio told reporters later that he told Zelenskyy in the 45-minute call that nothing had changed in U.S. support for Ukraine.

“There’s nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine,” he added, speaking at the start of a trip to India.

When it comes to missile interceptors, Rubio said the U.S. has to strike a delicate balance between its obligations to other partners and its own requirements when it comes to what he called “the most in-demand product” in the defense industry right now.

“When a country doesn’t get interceptors from the United States, it’s not because we are denying,” he added. “We have our own needs too.”

Ukrainian officials including Zelenskyy have made clear their accusation that the U.S. has imposed restrictions that have disrupted military operations and hampered Ukraine’s ability to intercept Russian missiles, making the attacks more deadly.

“That’s scandalous, that’s outrageous, that’s just simply not true. That’s not accurate,” Rubio said Tuesday.

Officials in the eastern Kharkiv region shared images Monday of a dead child in a stroller — a one-year-old girl they said was killed alongside her mother in a Russian attack on a public park in the region.

“The world has enough strength to stop the war. That strength must finally be used — against the murderers,” Zelenskyy said in a post decrying the strike.

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