Jonas Gahr Støre

But Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner went on at length during their conversation with Mr. Zelensky to deny any connection to domestic politics, according to the person informed about the sessions.

Mr. Zelensky had two friends with him for the encounter, his host, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stor of Norway, and the visiting President Alexander Stubb of Finland.

Both of them have been strong backers of Ukraine and, like most European leaders, do not share Mr. Trump's tilt toward Russia, but at the same time labor not to rile him unnecessarily.

I'm happy that we were able to get together today to straighten out a few things and to agree that what matters now is to look ahead, Mr. Storr said.

Jared Kushner having decided to sit this one out on account of the whole thing being a piece of performative theater, although that's never stopped him in the past.

President Zelensky said at a press conference with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre that he hopes Witkoff will take the peace proposals put forward by Ukraine and Europe to Russia and, quote, "Move to a trilateral meeting of the leaders to address the issues that only the leaders can do." Now, that's almost certainly not gonna happen because Putin won't allow any suggestion that he and Zelensky are of equal status.

So round we go again.

Now, before we get onto the military updates, because this is the big story of the day, Alex, let's come to you straight away with that and any other diplomatic issues you've been looking at.

Today, Zelensky is in Norway as he carries on his relentless campaign to try to keep the allies on side.

Roy and I are in Oslo as well, and last night we were able to have dinner with Norway's Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre.

Like all European leaders, he is facing this extraordinary challenge.

How do you keep Europe safe while we have this aggressive Russia to one side and unreliable America on the other? And what role does Ukraine's success or failure play in answering that key question?

Or if he does, he probably loses his life, uh, and he might lose his country.

And that's why I, I think...

Look, I think it's great that Jonas Gahr Støre and Alexander Stubb are there, but I really worry that this is just like another chapter in the same game.

And, and do you...

[laughs] I think we need to try to grow the power of the middle powers and the small powers, and make them bigger powers by coming together, and there are already visible signs of this happening.

22 countries, Premier Robinson- 22 countries, including Iceland, uh, signed a statement that Alex Stubb, the president of Finland, and Jonas Gahr Store, um, over dinner decided to have a conversation, a dialogue- Yeah ... that led to that, and over a weekend mobilized.

So I think we need to accelerate that and get a lot more countries to join that call and dial up the pressure on the, those with the most computational power.

And then I think we need to find a way to get those with the most computational power into dialogue.