Zelenskyy meets with Trump envoys as U.S. blasts ‘scandalous’ accusations on withdrawn support

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Breaking News · October 20, 2026, 3:20 PM CDT

As reported by NBC News:

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.^[1]

Video: Associated Press, October 20, 2026 — “US envoy Steve Witkoff meets with Zelenskyy, Stubb and Støre in Norway”. Matched to this story by shared names and terms in its title; watch the original for full context.

On the record

He called Monday for Zelenskyy to “get somebody else to negotiate,” his latest rebuke of the Ukrainian president.^[1]

The Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr StÃ¸re, said he was glad to have been able to "straighten out a few things" (adding that there was "nothing to gainâ¦from digging into what was said yesterday").^[2]

How 5 outlets are reporting it

What BBC reports

Zelensky strikes upbeat tone as he suggests issue of US intelligence sharing resolvedpublished at 20:38 BST Paul Adams Diplomatic correspondent After a torrid ten days, dominated by evidence of another breakdown in relations between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump, the tone in Oslo seemed curiously upbeat.

The Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr StÃ¸re, said he was glad to have been able to "straighten out a few things" (adding that there was "nothing to gainâ¦from digging into what was said yesterday").

President Zelensky seemed especially pleased with the outcome of a morning conversation with the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.^[2]

What is not yet confirmed

“There’s nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine,” he added, speaking at the start of a trip to India.^[1]

What the official record says

We searched government, military, court and international-body sites for a statement or document on this story and found none published yet. The officials quoted in this report are quoted as the outlets reported them, so treat those statements as secondhand until the original is published.

How to Verify This Yourself

Each headline above links to that outlet’s own report. The quoted passages come from the first two of those reports that could be retrieved in full.

References

Investigative methodology: this story was selected because 5 separate news organizations were reporting it at the same time. The quoted text is verbatim from the cited reports; nothing is paraphrased or added. Produced by scripts/breaking_news_monitor.py, not a language model.

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Breaking News Oct 20, 2026Zelenskyy meets with Trump envoys as U.S. blasts ‘scandalous’ accusations on withdrawn support