标签： Europe

Widespread urban violence that swept across Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Nice and other major French cities in the wake of weeks of student-led high school protests over living conditions has triggered an international diplomatic row, with French President Emmanuel Macron accusing multiple foreign leaders of exploiting the unrest for their own domestic electoral gains.

Speaking during an official visit to Doha, Qatar, Macron stopped short of naming the leaders he targeted, but made clear his criticism fell on figures campaigning in upcoming votes who made divisive statements about the riots “at France’s expense,” noting they were operating “whether here in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic.” The accusation is widely understood to target Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces parliamentary elections next week, and former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is campaigning for the midterm elections in November.

Netanyahu drew fierce pushback after claiming in an interview with Israel’s i24 News that France is facing an “invasion of extremist Islam,” repeating a warning he gave Macron following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that “if we do not eliminate them here, you will have them in Paris.” He added that “that is exactly what is happening” amid the French unrest. For his part, Trump pinned the blame for the violence on mass immigration to France, arguing the turmoil “is not about school” but “about people coming into the countries that hate the country.” He issued a direct call to Macron to “close your borders and take control before it is too late.”

Macron confirmed that there is no evidence of direct foreign interference in the outbreak of the violence itself, but slammed what he called “foreign manipulation of information afterwards” that fueled false and inflammatory claims. He specifically called out baseless conspiracies that France had been “invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists,” which he described as completely false. The French president added that the foreign leaders who repeated these claims were influenced by fabricated AI-generated videos and disinformation spread online.

In the wake of the unrest, nearly 150 people have been jailed and over 800 have been brought before French courts. Viral footage circulating on social media has captured intense running battles between masked rioters and police, widespread property damage and widespread looting of retail stores. The French government has publicly acknowledged that police temporarily “lost control” of areas gripped by the worst violence. In the aftermath of the unrest, Macron has vowed that authorities will take an “uncompromising” stance against what he called “agitators from ultra-left fringe groups,” which he blames for inciting most of the violence.

Multiple independent investigations have backed Macron’s claims of widespread disinformation tied to the unrest. The UK’s *Financial Times* reported that European Union regulators are currently probing possible foreign online interference and coordinated disinformation campaigns tied to the French riots, as well as similar recent unrest across other EU member states. Citing unnamed security sources, the outlet noted that pro-Russian accounts and far-right social media pages linked to past disinformation operations have actively spread violent footage to amplify chaos and deepen domestic divisions in France. The report also named Iran and Algeria as additional suspects linked to some of the misleading messaging.

David Colon, a disinformation researcher at France’s prestigious Sciences Po university, confirmed that “pro-Kremlin influencers” tied to the Russian disinformation operation codenamed Storm-1516 “amplified the events and spread a number of false narratives.” Tensions between France and Russia run high, as France is one of the most vocal military backers of Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russian invasion. France also faces longstanding strained tensions with Algeria, a former French colony that fought a bloody 1962 war of independence, and with Iran amid the latter’s ongoing regional conflicts with the U.S. and Israel.

BBC Verify’s own analysis has identified more than 15 examples of fake news videos circulating on social media that researchers from U.S.-based dTeam trace to a long-running Russian disinformation operation known as Matryoshka. These fake videos intentionally mimic the branding of major established French news outlets including Le Monde, Euronews and France 24 to mislead viewers into believing they are legitimate reporting. While individual videos from Matryoshka have so far had limited reach, experts note that their focus on amplifying French domestic unrest aligns with well-documented Russian disinformation tactics designed to destabilize Western nations.

In addition to fabricated videos, BBC Verify also traced one of the most viral AI-generated images circulating online — which purported to show an elderly Parisian couple robbed and left naked by rioters — to an Israeli media outlet. Sabrina Hania, director of Infos-Israel.News, confirmed her team created the image using ChatGPT on October 17, shortly after a television journalist cited unconfirmed “police information” about the alleged incident. French prosecutors have confirmed they have no evidence that the event ever occurred. While the original post labelled the image as AI-generated when it was first shared on X and Instagram, it was later reshared hundreds of thousands of times without any disclaimer, amassing more than six million views. Hania said she regrets the image was taken out of context and misled so many people, placing blame on users who reshared it without disclosing it was AI-generated fabrications.

Four decades after the fatal shooting of one of Ireland’s most senior prison officers at the height of tensions linked to the Northern Ireland Troubles, the Irish government will issue a formal state apology on Wednesday to the victim’s family for repeated failures in official investigations into his killing.

Brian Stack, a 49-year-old father of three who served as chief prison officer at the high-security Portlaoise Prison, was attacked in March 1983. He had just finished attending a professional boxing match in central Dublin and was crossing a nearby street when an assailant shot him in the back of the neck. The attack left Stack completely paralyzed, and he succumbed to his injuries 18 months later. To date, no individual has ever been convicted or held legally accountable for the murder.

Over the course of the investigation into Stack’s death, Irish national police (An Garda Síochána) launched three separate probes into the killing, all of which failed to secure a conviction. A subsequent review of the first investigation by Ireland’s serious crime review team uncovered 194 separate errors and omissions in the original investigative work, a detail Austin Stack, the victim’s son, shared publicly in comments to BBC Radio Ulster.

For years, Stack’s family has waged a persistent public and private campaign to uncover the full truth of his killing and hold official bodies accountable for their missteps. Despite multiple meetings with successive Irish ministers for justice over decades, the family has repeatedly been denied access to the full serious crime review team report, with authorities citing its status as an internal government document.

On Wednesday, Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin will deliver the formal state apology during an official sitting of Dáil Éireann, Ireland’s national parliament. Ahead of the plenary proceedings, Martin and current Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan will hold a private meeting with the Stack family at Dublin’s government buildings.

Austin Stack told the BBC that the long-awaited official apology carries profound meaning for his entire family, particularly his 80-plus-year-old mother. “It’s a great sense of comfort to particularly my mother and to myself and my two brothers, because the state is officially owning up to the errors and the omissions that happened,” he said, adding that the apology also serves as long-overdue vindication of his father’s character and service.

“My dad was doing a very difficult job at a very difficult time in our history,” he said. “He was awarded the Irish Prison Service’s highest bravery award for that work that he was doing. And this is further vindication of him and his good name.”

The path to Wednesday’s apology has been decades in the making. It was not until 2013, 30 years after the attack, that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) formally admitted responsibility for killing Stack, following years of sustained pressure from the family. That same year, the family met with then-Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and a former IRA commander, with Adams offering his personal regret over the killing to the family.

In 2019, then-Garda Commissioner Drew Harris issued a personal apology to the Stack family for the institutional mishandling of the murder investigation. Most recently, in 2023, Gardaí notified the family that the case file, which had been held by the Director of Public Prosecutions for years, would be returned to investigating police to open the door for new investigative work.

Stack remains the only Irish prison officer killed in an act of political violence linked to the Troubles, decades-long period of sectarian and political conflict centered in Northern Ireland that claimed more than 3,500 lives between the late 1960s and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

In the tree-lined streets of central Paris, shattered glass from smashed storefronts still crunches underfoot, and walls are scrawled with red graffiti insulting French police, dated to the October 17 riot. For local resident Elisabeth, the chaos that unfolded that Saturday does not represent the country she loves. Speaking through tears amid the wreckage, she pushed back against widespread media focus on the violence, insisting it does not reflect the values of most French people. “This is not the face of France,” she stressed, rejecting her friend’s comparison to an impending civil war. But her uncertainty over who orchestrated the unrest, and why it erupted after weeks of peaceful student protests, mirrors the confusion and division rippling across the nation days after the violence. What began as a mass demonstration over public education reforms has devolved into widespread arson, looting of more than 3,000 businesses, and coordinated attacks on law enforcement, leaving French political leaders scrambling to assign blame — and turning the chaos into early political fodder for the 2027 presidential election, just six months away.

French top officials have been unified in pointing fingers at radical far-left factions as the main architects of the violence. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has repeatedly stated that small far-left and ultra-left groups planned the insurrection, accusing these factions of weaponizing legitimate student demonstrations for political gain. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez echoed this claim, saying these groups “poured oil onto the fire” of existing public frustration. A declassified French intelligence report dated September 29, published by Le Figaro, goes further, alleging that radical-left aligned student unions and political movements have been deliberately manipulating peaceful student protests. The report specifically names Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing populist party La France Insoumise (LFI), claiming the group is embracing violence as an electoral strategy to build support ahead of 2027. French intelligence had already warned government leaders earlier this month that anarchist left-wing groups were embedded in the student movement, and their symbolic circled capital “A” was found spray-painted on damaged buildings across the country over the weekend. Footage repeatedly aired by French media shows groups of masked young men in black clothing attacking police vans with large hammers and machetes, adding credence to claims that at least some of the violence was pre-planned, even as most looting appears to have been opportunistic.

Belgian officials have drawn similar connections, with Interior Minister Bernard Quintin warning this week of the “TikTokisation of violence,” where riot footage shared widely on social media radicalizes impressionable young people. Quintin also blamed “known far left groups” for violent unrest that has erupted in Brussels and Liège in recent days. Back in France, the conservative mayor of Limoges Guillaume Guérin has publicly blamed LFI for the chaos in his city, where the historic town hall was set ablaze — an accusation the party has forcefully rejected.

Mélenchon, who participated in Saturday’s originally planned peaceful protest and is currently polling in second place for the 2027 race, has vehemently denied all claims of involvement in the violence. He has flipped the blame back to Lecornu and centrist President Emmanuel Macron’s government, arguing the administration is either incompetent or intentionally allowed the violence to unfold to position itself as the “party of order” and distract from its failed management of France’s spiraling public debt and borrowing costs. Student organizers echo this rejection, calling the claims of political manipulation insulting. Lisa Cordat, a representative of the FSE student union in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, where the original education protests began a month ago, says students have organized their own demonstrations via independent social media and student-led groups. “Student anger comes from the ground up,” she emphasized, rejecting any claim that politicians are calling the shots.

For many ordinary French residents, however, the flurry of cross-partisan blame-shifting only highlights how political leaders are exploiting the violence for their own gain, rather than addressing the root causes of public anger. “Politicians are hunting for scapegoats but don’t ask why it all happened,” said 25-year-old Lina, echoing a sentiment shared by many interviewees. Teacher Mar put it more bluntly: “Saturday’s violence suits politicians’ purpose. It distracts from weeks of legitimate protests for better public services. Politicians aren’t listening to what the students need, or what teachers need or what the French people want. They’re using the violence to election-campaign to become president and to try to make their opponents look bad.”

Of all the presidential contenders, far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen appears to be the biggest political beneficiary of the unrest, which comes as she already holds a significant lead in early polling for 2027. Le Pen released a formal presidential-style video address to the nation Sunday, standing behind a desk in front of the French flag and specifically naming Mélenchon, blaming his associates for seeking to “throw the country into chaos.” She also attacked Macron’s government as “running out of steam,” claiming France is “taken hostage between violence and powerlessness,” and closed by reminding voters they will soon have the chance to “choose a different path” in six months. Like former U.S. President Donald Trump, Le Pen has also blamed migrants for the chaos, doubling down on her party’s signature law-and-order and closed-border platform.

The unrest has also exposed critical gaps in France’s domestic security apparatus. President Macron has already demanded explanations for intelligence and policing failures after the violence, with Interior Minister Nunez admitting there were not enough officers deployed to the streets despite advance public notice of the nationwide protests. After facing accusations of heavy-handed policing at earlier demonstrations, law enforcement was left badly outmatched by the scale of coordinated violence Saturday. Online platforms have pledged to work with authorities to track down looters, many of whom openly posted stolen goods — including designer sneakers — for sale online shortly after the looting, with many not even bothering to hide their identities. Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, another 2027 presidential hopeful, has called for targeted social media blackouts to prevent further unrest, after evidence showed social media posts encouraged participation in the violence.

Beyond the immediate political blame game, the French riots are part of a broader wave of youth-led unrest spreading across Europe, with similar protests erupting over the past weekend in Italy, Portugal, and Albania alongside France and Belgium. A growing body of polling and on-the-ground interviews shows this unrest stems from deep, long-simmering disillusionment with mainstream politics and deteriorating living conditions across the continent. Young people in particular face a cascade of crises: skyrocketing housing costs, growing social inequality, the accelerating threat of climate change, and fears that artificial intelligence will displace them from the workforce. Many people also report feeling powerless over global events that drive up everyday costs, such as ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East that have pushed energy prices sharply higher.

2024 Pew Research polling bears out this widespread discontent: 69% of people in France report being dissatisfied with how democracy is working in their country, compared to 68% in Spain, 62% in Italy, and 69% in the United States. Most people on the ground in France are quick to draw a clear line between the thousands of peaceful protesters who marched to demand better public education, and the small faction of rioters who engaged in violence and looting. But the question now hanging over France and the rest of Europe is whether this wave of unrest is the product of simple political manipulation by extreme factions — or a boiling over of decades of ignored public frustration, where growing numbers of people have come to feel there is little left to lose.

High-stake negotiations hosted in Oslo this week have marked a partial breakthrough in strained relations between Kyiv and Washington, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirming that U.S. intelligence sharing for early warnings of Russian missile and drone attacks is now functioning effectively. The resolution of this friction point came during closed-door talks between Zelensky and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, clearing the way for the next phase of Western-backed peace efforts that will move to St. Petersburg when Witkoff meets Russian leadership on Wednesday.

The meeting in the Norwegian capital followed weeks of growing tensions between the two allies, after Kyiv publicly accused Washington of holding back critical intelligence that could protect Ukrainian civilians from deadly airstrikes. That claim was immediately dismissed as “scandalous” by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has pushed back on suggestions the Trump administration is deliberately withholding military support. A parallel dispute has also emerged over SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, which Ukrainian military forces rely on for drone operations against Russian targets. Zelensky told reporters after the Oslo talks he remained hopeful for a positive resolution to recent reported speed restrictions on the platform, a issue that a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has already called for an urgent investigation into.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, one of the co-hosts of the multilateral talks alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, announced that participants had made “genuine progress” on drafting a set of peace proposals, though he declined to share specific details and cautioned that a negotiated end to the three-year conflict will require significant patience. Støre also emphasized a core European demand: that European nations must be included at every stage of any peace talks, a position that comes amid growing concern across the continent over inconsistent signals from the Trump administration on its commitment to Ukraine’s security.

Witkoff did not appear at the joint press conference following Tuesday’s discussions, and the focus now turns to Moscow’s response to the drafted framework. Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet issued a public comment on the latest developments, but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has already signaled the Kremlin’s opening stance: while it will hear out Witkoff’s proposals, it will not make any political concessions. Moscow currently retains control of roughly 20 percent of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory, three years after Putin launched a full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

On the same day the Oslo talks were held, Russian forces continued their regular airstrike campaign, killing at least 10 civilians across Ukraine: four in and around Kyiv, four in the eastern Donetsk region, and two in the central city of Dnipro. The deadly attacks underscored the ongoing urgency of early warning intelligence that Zelensky highlighted, noting that timely alerts allow civilians to take shelter before incoming ballistic missiles strike.

The Oslo meeting was not the first round of backchannel talks between U.S. and Ukrainian representatives in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a Ukrainian delegation led by intelligence chief Rustem Umerov and lawmaker Davyd Arakhamia met Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami. That meeting ended abruptly after the delegation learned Trump would lift U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel exports, allowing Moscow to ship more than 300,000 tons of diesel to the U.S. and global markets. Zelensky reacted to the decision by calling it a “happy birthday present” for Putin.

Recent weeks have seen a sharp downturn in public U.S.-Ukraine relations, with Trump repeatedly stating that it is time for Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war and even suggesting that Ukraine should replace its current leadership. Speaking to reporters at the White House after the Oslo talks, Trump reaffirmed his position that Kyiv should reach an agreement, saying Russia is also willing to finalize a deal and that the war must end. Ahead of upcoming U.S. midterm elections, Trump has also blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries for rising U.S. fuel prices, a point echoed by Vice President JD Vance in comments this week that have alarmed European leaders.

Vance said Monday that he does not consider Ukraine a formal U.S. ally, noted it is not a NATO member and should not join the alliance, and said Washington and Kyiv hold divergent interests on multiple issues, including strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz echoed widespread European anxiety this week, saying there are “mixed pictures and messages” coming from Washington on the war. Merz told Bloomberg TV that Europe remains committed to supporting Ukraine despite the heavy budgetary burden, and is working to convince the U.S. administration that the conflict must be resolved jointly with European partners.

On the issue of U.S. military support, unconfirmed reports ahead of the Oslo talks suggested that the transfer of additional U.S.-made Patriot interceptor missiles – the only weapon system Ukraine currently has that can effectively shoot down Russian ballistic missiles – has not yet been approved by the Trump administration. Rubio, who is currently on an official visit to India, acknowledged that the new interceptors have not yet arrived in Ukraine but denied that Kyiv has been intentionally denied any requested military support. Zelensky added that he held a constructive discussion with Rubio ahead of the Oslo meeting on the need for early warning intelligence, additional Patriots, and a resolution to the Starlink restrictions.

A warm opening hug between former U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo this week did little to mask the growing rift at the highest levels of U.S.-Ukrainian relations, as a series of controversial policy shifts from the Trump administration have left Kyiv questioning Washington’s commitment to its war against Russian invasion.

The meeting, held in the Norwegian capital, comes after ten days of escalating public tension between Trump and Zelensky that has laid bare the fractious and unpredictable nature of their relationship. The two leaders have never enjoyed close ties, but recent exchanges have revealed a rupture deeper than any seen in years. Last week, Trump publicly attacked Zelensky in an interview with Newsmax, calling the Ukrainian leader “not a good guy” for the U.S. to work with. This week, he doubled down, dismissing Zelensky’s criticism of the U.S.-Russia diesel deal by saying “Zelensky doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

These harsh words are characteristic of Trump’s blunt, inconsistent approach to diplomacy, observers note. For instance, just four months after lambasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in June 2025, calling him a leader with poor judgment, Trump publicly endorsed him ahead of Israel’s elections. “Trump can always do another U-turn,” explained Ian Bond of the Centre for European Reform, “But this does look bad.”

For his part, Zelensky has historically maintained a cautious public tone regarding his most unreliable yet critical partner, but this month his frustration has boiled over. Speaking to a visiting U.S. congressional delegation, Zelensky referenced “decisions on the American side that are hard to explain between friends” and openly voiced fears that Washington has made a political decision to slow down military support to Ukraine. Responding directly to Trump’s recent claim that he is the main barrier to a negotiated end to the war, Zelensky wrote on Telegram: “We have welcomed literally EVERY attempt by our partners to end this war with dignity.”

This is not the first time U.S.-Ukraine relations have hit a crisis point. After a high-profile public altercation between the two leaders in the Oval Office in February 2025, when Trump accused Zelensky of “gambling with World War III,” Washington temporarily suspended military aid and restricted intelligence sharing. That crisis was resolved in a week, and when the Trump administration later decided to end direct U.S. financing for military assistance to Ukraine, it established a mechanism for European nations to purchase U.S.-made military equipment on Kyiv’s behalf.

Today, however, the strains are being felt on the front lines of Ukraine’s air defense. One critical exception to the European funding model has been U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles, which are badly needed by Kyiv to counter Russian ballistic missile attacks. Amid a global shortage of Patriot interceptors, supplies to Ukraine have slowed to a trickle. Citing an unnamed senior Ukrainian official, The Washington Post reported that only a handful of interceptors remain in Kyiv’s stockpile, and the Trump administration has delayed approval for U.S. allies to transfer their own Patriot stocks to Ukraine.

The most consequential policy shift that has angered Kyiv came earlier this month, when Trump announced a new deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to open U.S. markets to Russian diesel exports. While experts have questioned whether the deal will actually lower U.S. gasoline prices ahead of congressional midterm elections – widely seen as the primary political motivation for the agreement – it sent a clear signal that Washington is willing to prioritize its own political and economic interests over Ukraine’s concerns, particularly in the wake of Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. For Kyiv, the deal was a sharp rebuke.

Things got worse last Friday, when Trump waived a new round of sweeping sanctions on Russia that had been passed in the Graham Act – legislation named after late South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a prominent and longtime supporter of Ukraine. Trump justified the move by arguing the sanctions would derail his efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, but Kyiv and its supporters see it as further evidence that the White House is aligning with the Kremlin. “What the Trump administration is doing is providing carrots to the Russians and sticks applied to the Ukrainians,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor told the BBC, adding “It’s inexplicable and saddening.” Senior Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev echoed that reading, calling the move “an important and truly historic moment,” a development that aligns with Moscow’s vision of closer U.S.-Russia ties promoted after the 2025 Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage.

Further eroding trust are unconfirmed allegations that the Trump administration has restricted intelligence sharing with Kyiv and limited Ukraine’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service, both critical tools for Ukraine’s defense against Russian drone and missile attacks. Zelensky told NBC News that for three days amid a wave of Russian ballistic attacks, Ukraine received no advance warning from U.S. satellite intelligence. On October 12, five Russian S-400 missiles hit central Kyiv before air raid sirens or mobile alerts could be activated, according to local reports. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has denied any intentional pause in intelligence sharing, blaming the gap on a temporary “software problem.”

Similar confusion surrounds Starlink access. Ukrainian officials reported last week that connection speeds have been throttled, leaving military terminals unable to maintain the stable high-speed connections needed to intercept fast-moving Russian jet-powered drones, which have launched an escalating wave of attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent months. Reuters reported that the order to restrict access originated at the White House, but Rubio has denied that any such order was issued. Even so, the repeated emergence of these allegations points to a deep and ongoing breakdown of trust between the two sides.

This long-running tension has deep roots. For more than a decade, Trump has harbored mistrust toward Ukraine, stemming from his debunked belief that Ukrainian officials interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to prevent him from winning, including the false claim that the Democratic National Committee stored a server on Ukrainian territory. When Zelensky took office in 2019, he resisted Trump’s demands to open investigations into both the 2016 election claims and then-candidate Joe Biden, a refusal that came as Trump was withholding $391 million in congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine – a scandal that ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment.

While it remains unclear whether this historical resentment is shaping current U.S. policy, there is no question that the already volatile U.S.-Ukraine relationship has entered another period of severe strain. Following the Oslo talks, Witkoff is set to carry a new set of Ukrainian proposals to St. Petersburg for talks with Putin, leaving the international community waiting for Moscow’s next move. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who hosted the talks, said the meeting had helped “to straighten out a few things,” and struck a diplomatic tone, saying “There’s nothing to gain from… digging into what was said yesterday or a week ago.”

Zelensky struck an optimistic note after the talks, telling reporters he had a productive conversation with Secretary Rubio, that the early warning intelligence issue had already been resolved, and that he expected positive progress on both Patriot missile supplies and Starlink access. “I think we will have good results too,” he said. Even so, behind Zelensky’s carefully calibrated upbeat tone, it is clear that Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump are once again at odds, with the future of critical U.S. support for Ukraine hanging in the balance.

In a high-stakes gathering aimed at resetting strained relations between Kyiv and Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff have convened in Oslo, Norway, for critical talks centered on the future of Western support for Ukraine and diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s full-scale invasion. Both leaders arrived in the Norwegian capital on Tuesday, with the meeting arranged at Zelensky’s explicit request through Norwegian and Finnish authorities, at what Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre called “a critical time for Ukraine.”

The talks come amid a sharp downward spiral in ties between Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump, whose public comments in recent weeks have openly questioned Zelensky’s leadership. Trump has gone so far as to state that Ukraine needs a new president and suggested that a third party should take over Ukraine’s negotiation mandate for any peace deal. The rift has deepened over mounting accusations from Ukrainian officials that Washington is withholding critical intelligence that would warn Kyiv of incoming Russian missile and drone attacks.

Serhii Beskrestnov, Zelensky’s top military technical adviser, recently told the BBC that inconsistent access to U.S. early warning intelligence is directly costing Ukrainian lives. “Sometimes we receive this information before the attack, another time we do not,” Beskrestnov said, describing the pattern of inconsistent alerts as deeply concerning. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, currently on an official visit to India, has pushed back fiercely against these claims, dismissing the accusations as “scandalous” and “outstandingly outrageous.” While Rubio acknowledged that additional Patriot air defense interceptors requested by Ukraine have not yet arrived in the country, he denied Washington has intentionally withheld any critical military support from Kyiv. Unconfirmed reports emerging on Tuesday have added to tensions, indicating that formal approval for the transfer of more Patriot interceptors is still pending in Washington.

Another major point of friction revolves around SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network, a critical infrastructure for Ukraine’s military and civilian communications on the front lines. Last week, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators called for an urgent investigation into repeated service disruptions of Starlink across Ukrainian territory. Zelensky noted ahead of the Oslo talks that he had already held a “constructive discussion” with Rubio about the pressing need for consistent U.S. intelligence support, additional missile interceptors, and uninterrupted Starlink connectivity.

The Oslo meeting is not a bilateral dialogue between the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations. Witkoff was joined remotely by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, while in-person and virtual attendees include Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and senior officials from the United Kingdom, Poland, France, Germany, the European Union, and NATO. Støre emphasized that the core goal of the facilitated talks is to steer the fractured U.S.-Ukraine relationship back onto “a more constructive path,” with the ultimate aim of reaching a “lasting and just peace” through diplomatic negotiations.

Speculation is growing that Witkoff may travel to Moscow for talks with Russian officials after wrapping up his engagements in Oslo, though no official itinerary has been confirmed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russian officials hope to arrange a meeting with Witkoff in the near future, adding that Moscow “greatly appreciates the mediation efforts of the American negotiators.” The contact comes just weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with Trump to discuss the war, a conversation that was followed by Trump’s announcement that Russia would lift its ban on diesel exports to the U.S. and other global markets, ending U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel shipments.

European leaders have openly voiced growing concern over inconsistent signals from the Trump administration on the Ukraine war. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told Bloomberg TV on Monday that Washington has sent “mixed pictures and messages” on the conflict, noting that the U.S. has halted all funding for Ukraine’s defense since the start of 2025. “Europe and other countries are shouldering the burden now,” Merz said. “It’s really a big effort for our budgets, it’s really a big thing for the European Union, but we are doing that and we are trying to keep on doing that until this terrible war ends.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance further clarified the Trump administration’s stance in a recent television interview, saying that while Ukraine is a “partner in some ways” to the U.S., the two countries hold “divergent interests from time to time” — specifically calling on Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. Vance added that the U.S. does not have a formal alliance with Ukraine, and he does not support Ukraine joining NATO, saying “we’re gonna work together on some things, but also we’re gonna be opposite on some things too.”

As the talks get underway in Oslo, the outcome of the negotiations is expected to shape the future of Western support for Ukraine, the trajectory of diplomatic efforts to end the war, and the stability of the transatlantic alliance amid shifting U.S. foreign policy priorities.