Five years into Russia’s war on Ukraine, the autumn of 2026 offers no sign that the fighting will end soon. Days of diplomacy – a trilateral meeting in Oslo between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and European counterparts, followed by Witkoff’s trip to St Petersburg for talks with President Vladimir Putin – have produced nothing approaching a breakthrough. The Kremlin’s own foreign-policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, dismissed the European and Kyiv “new approaches” as yielding “not much that was useful,” and there is no trilateral summit on the table.
A war of winter and leverage
President Putin, the BBC’s Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg notes, appears to feel no pressure to end the war. With Ukraine’s air defences under severe strain, winter closing in and a US president eager for a bigger relationship with Moscow, the balance of incentives favours the attacker. Mr Trump has paused sanctions, agreed to buy Russian diesel and publicly questioned President Zelensky, moves the Kremlin has welcomed even as it keeps its forces in position.
Britain’s line under Burnham
In London, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has kept the UK firmly in Kyiv’s corner, signalling that British military and humanitarian support for Ukraine will run through the winter. Downing Street has repeated that any settlement must respect Ukraine’s sovereign borders, a position that sits at odds with the concessions Mr Putin has so far been offered. The stalemate in the diplomatic track means the UK’s own defence planning – from Storm Shadow deliveries to the latest air-defence batteries – stays on a war footing rather than a peace footing.
Why it matters
The trajectory of these talks shapes not only Ukraine’s future but the wider European order. If Russia concludes it can outlast Western unity, the incentive for further aggression stays high. For the UK, that means sustained defence spending, continued weapons production and a foreign policy that must balance support for Kyiv with the desire for a stable Europe – none of it made simpler by a peace process that, after Oslo and St Petersburg, is going nowhere fast.
What happens next
Attention turns to next month’s Apec summit in China, where a possible three-way meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump and President Xi Jinping is already being dubbed “the New Yalta” by Russian commentators. Until then, the White House’s stated commitment to ending the war sits alongside Kremlin intransigence, and the UK’s support for Ukraine – now entering its harsh fifth winter – looks set to deepen rather than diminish.
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