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.

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 that idea and defended their decision to open up a line of communication directly to the Kremlin. “Let’s admit it. He is not isolated,” he said. “The only voice reaching Moscow comes from Washington.”

While Norway and Finland have good relations with the American negotiators, the war is happening in Europe, he said. “Living month by month … thinking that this war will end by Europe not talking to Moscow, I think, is an illusion … We believe that there should be European voices reaching Putin, with the message of why and how we support Ukraine.” 

Rational. Not a peacemaker

Having spoken to Putin, how would Støre characterize his state of mind? Did he seem rational in the conversation?

“I would describe it as professional. I would describe it as rational,” he said. “It was a conversation where we agreed the principles — we would not interrupt, we will keep [to] statements. His arguments were perfectly clearly transmitted.”

Some reports suggested that Putin used the call to lecture the two Nordic leaders on Slavic history as his justification for the war, an impression the Norwegian wants to correct: “I just have to say, you know, I was present. He didn’t.”

Does Støre believe Putin wants peace? “Well, if he had wanted peace, there would have been no war at the outset. If he had wanted peace during these five years, when he sees that his country is regressing, that neighboring countries are becoming members of NATO, that his people are being killed, and all these terrible things, the war would have ended. So that is one side to that.”

But at the same time, “the fact that he picks up that phone” to talk “I think that signals, at least that there’s a readiness to sit down.” And while Støre has not seen signs “so far” that Putin is genuinely open to a deal, sending a team to Abu Dhabi and being responsible for “not delivering anything” also has “a price.”  

Later this week, European leaders are due to debate who should represent them in Ukraine negotiations when they meet for an informal summit in Dublin. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is particularly frustrated that the EU has so far failed to make a plan for how to make sure its voice is fully heard when decisions are made. 

Støre said he had followed the debate about whether somebody should be “talking on behalf of a larger group” in Europe — “and I think there should be.”

It could be one individual, or a different arrangement, he said. Crucially, Europe needs to decide on its core collective messages and goals and then appoint a person or people to deliver those to Trump and Putin, he said. Increasingly, Støre said he had been looking to the so-called E3 to play this role — Europe’s biggest three economic powers, Germany, France and the U.K.

Whoever ends up speaking for European interests, one urgent task facing the region is how to stop Trump and Putin carving up a new security plan, raising fears in Europe over cuts to the U.S. troop presence, or weakening NATO’s role — a longtime goal of Russia’s leader. 

Last week, Trump and his team suggested the U.S. was working on a major overhaul of European security that the president said might involve “the whole of Europe.” 

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner said the goal was “to develop practical arrangements that address the security concerns of all sides.”

But rolling the future of America’s role in European security into a negotiation about ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not acceptable to Norway, or Støre says, to other Nordic-Baltic countries. 

“Any issues relating to European architecture on security will have to be dealt with after the end of the war,” Støre said. “Russia keeps floating the ideas they had in the end of [2021] about where there could be NATO and where there could not be NATO. That is not for Russia to decide. This has nothing to do with this point in the negotiations.” 

In private, some European officials are resigned to the fact that Trump’s recurrent bashing of NATO allies has already weakened the effectiveness of the alliance as a deterrent against Russian aggression.

Støre insisted NATO remains in good shape. “We can discuss whether this or that statement helps,” he said. “I think sometimes it’s hard to say yes, they do help.”

KYIV – Russia struck a railway platform in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday, killing at least 14 people in what Mayor Borys Filatov described as an act “of genocidal war.”

“In Dnipro, the Russian forces directed a drone straight at the railway station platform, where many people were waiting for a train. As of this moment, 14 people have been killed, and at least 14 others have been wounded,” State Emergency Service of Ukraine said in a statement.

Russia also killed civilians in residential districts of Kremenchuk in сentral Ukraine and in the center of Chernihiv in the north of the country, emergency services said. Three people were killed in Kremenchuk and another 15 were injured, while two children died in the strikes on Chernihiv, where 23 people were injured, including a 10-month-old baby girl. Houses, shops, and cars were also damaged, the statement says.

“Just how many terrorist strikes has Russia carried out against our people since sanctions were lifted on certain Russian oligarchs and the Russian energy sector, rather than de-escalating?” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Facebook post after the strikes.

“This is precisely why Ukraine has always said that just and decisive action by America and Europe is needed in response to Russian escalation … It is time for new, stronger sanctions steps by the EU, the United States, and the G7,” Zelenskyy added.

Czech President Petr Pavel condemned the attack as “inexcusable,” while French President Emmanuel Macron said the incident underlined the need to “redouble our efforts for a just and lasting peace and bring Russia to the negotiating table.”

Russia’s defense ministry said Moscow carried out strikes in places where Ukraine was producing drones and on logistical routes used to transport weapons.

Russia downed most of the 613 Ukrainian drones heading towards Moscow overnight on Thursday, the capital city’s mayor Sergey Sobyanin said. He did not give details on the extent of the damage.