Putin may not want peace, warns Norwegian leader who spoke to him

Putin may not want peace, warns Norwegian leader who spoke to him In an exclusive POLITICO interview, Norway’s Jonas Gahr Støre warns he does not expect Abu Dhabi talks to deliver a major breakthrough. By TIM ROSS in Oslo Photo-illustration by Mr.Nelson design for POLITICO Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is already unpopular with Donald Trump, who blames his government for not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize, and recently dismissed Norway as a “shithouse country.” Now Støre is casting doubt on the U.S. president’s bullish prediction that a “big, beautiful” peace deal is close to being signed to end nearly five years of Russia’s full-scale war with Ukraine. In an interview with POLITICO ahead of the restart of talks in Abu Dhabi, Støre gave a sober assessment of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s mindset and the chances of an imminent ceasefire. And as the White House touts plans to overhaul the established security order in Europe, Støre bluntly warned that the continent’s defenses must not become a bargaining chip in the negotiation to end the war in Ukraine. “I would be cautious,” Støre said, when asked what he expected to come out of the latest talks scheduled for the United Arab Emirates. “Abu Dhabi is a stepping stone, and one output of it should be a follow-up quite soon after.” According to Støre, the Abu Dhabi agenda will potentially include talks about a ceasefire for the Black Sea to allow grain to be safely transported, a ceasefire on energy infrastructure, a front-line freeze in the conflict, and other “confidence building measures” such as prisoner swaps. There has also been work on the question of security guarantees to ensure Putin does not attack again, he said. Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport on Oct. 22, 2025. | Javad Parsa/NTB via Getty Images Negotiating teams from Moscow and Kyiv are due to sit down with the United States in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10-11. It is the first three-way meeting the sides have had since February, and comes after a month of intensifying diplomacy and increasingly impatient demands from Trump to deliver a deal. Norway’s leader has found himself at the center of the storm more than once in that time. Working with his close friend and regional ally, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, Støre tried to rescue the faltering peace process last month by hosting a meeting with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oslo. That got Ukraine and America back on the same page and prepared the ground for the Abu Dhabi discussion. But a day after the Oslo meeting, Witkoff was in St. Petersburg praising Putin to his face as a “humanitarian,” a statement that horrified many of Ukraine’s European allies. Støre said he is too diplomatic to reveal how the remark made him feel. But he added: “It would not have been part of my vocabulary.” Given Witkoff’s pivotal role in the negotiations, as well as Trump’s own recent declaration that Russia has been “fine” in Ukraine, does Støre trust these individuals as guardians of a fair peace process for Ukraine? Should Europe trust them, or not? For all his tact and experience as a foreign minister, the 66-year-old Norwegian’s reply is not a straightforward yes. “I trust that the U.S. is seeking a way to end this war,” he said. Hotline to the Kremlin On Oct. 27, Støre and Stubb took matters into their own hands. Rather than wait for the U.S. to negotiate a deal with Putin that would have vast ramifications for Europe, they picked up the phone to call the Kremlin directly. It was a rare outreach from pro-Ukraine leaders to Putin, who has been frozen out by Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. Their 90-minute call stunned and dismayed some of the Nordics’ neighbors in countries such as Denmark and Latvia, who believed Europe should continue to isolate the Russian aggressor. Støre rejected