Zelensky arrives for Oslo talks as Rubio rejects claim over US warnings

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Norway on Tuesday for planned talks in Oslo with US envoy Steve Witkoff and European leaders, amid a dispute over whether Kyiv is receiving timely American warnings of Russian missile strikes. Witkoff has also arrived; fellow envoy Jared Kushner is due to join remotely, the Norwegian government said. [1] [2] [3]

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Ukraine had asked for the US envoys to take part and that he hoped the meeting would put diplomacy on a more constructive path. Finland’s President Alexander Stubb is also due to attend talks covering Russia’s war against Ukraine and European security. [2] [7]

The warning dispute intensified after Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a military technical adviser to Zelensky, told the BBC that American alerts sometimes failed to reach Ukraine before an attack. He said people had died as a result, while stressing that other intelligence continued to flow and that the problem concerned warnings used to trigger air-raid alerts. [4]

Speaking to reporters in India, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the suggestion that people were dying because Washington was denying information “scandalous” and “outrageous”. “There’s nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine,” he said. [3]

The disagreement extends beyond individual alerts. Zelensky said on Sunday that intelligence sharing had been interrupted and then restored; Rubio said on Monday there had been “no pause”. Neither account establishes when particular missile warnings reached Ukraine, or whether a missed warning contributed to any specific death. [6] Zelensky said he had discussed early warnings, missile interceptors and Starlink with Rubio ahead of the Oslo talks.