Zelenskyy announces three joint Ukraine–Norway defence projects during Oslo visit

Why it matters

The visit converts a bilateral relationship into named industrial projects with a NATO ally, anchoring cooperation with Kongsberg — producer of the NASAMS systems Ukraine relies on daily — around an explicit Shahed countermeasure with a 1.5–2 month delivery window. Pairing those announcements with a public request to close Ukraine's €3.5 billion budget gap highlights the wartime financing runway alongside the defence-industrial track. Zelenskyy's framing of the diplomatic track — pegging further peace efforts to whether the US hears new Russian proposals — also makes the visit a moment of political signalling, not just procurement.

What happened

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to Norway on 20 October for a two-day visit. On arrival in Oslo he met Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff for trilateral talks, and separately held an audience with King Harald V of Norway.

On 21 October, Zelenskyy held a second meeting with Støre, a meeting with Defence Minister Tore Sandvik, and a meeting with Kongsberg CEO Eirik Lie and other representatives of the company, which manufactures NASAMS air defence systems. Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine and Norway are jointly working on three defence projects: one aimed at countering Shahed drones, with first results expected in 1.5–2 months; a second tied to the European anti-ballistic programme FREYJA, in which Norway is an active participant; and a third on air defence and satellite communications. The Shahed-counterside project is being implemented jointly with Kongsberg.

Beyond defence, Zelenskyy told Norwegian partners that Ukraine still has a €3.5 billion (~$4.1 billion) budget gap to close for the current financial year and said the issue is in dialogue. Norway announced an additional 750 million kroner (~$78.5 million) to support Ukraine's wartime state functioning. The sides also discussed a new package of energy support, the return of deported Ukrainian children, the arrangement of bomb shelters (including for children), and school-bus programmes. Zelenskyy framed further progress on peace as conditional on US reception of new proposals from Russia.

Where reporting differs

Two factual disagreements appear in the supplied material. First, the FREYJA testing target is described in some sources as 'by the end of the current year' and in others as 'by the end of 2026'; the material does not resolve which is meant. Second, the Norwegian monarch Zelenskyy met is named in different sources as King Harald V and as King Haakon VIII, with no reconciliation between the two spellings in the material.

Background

Ukraine has operated Kongsberg-produced NASAMS systems since 2022; the company and a Ukrainian enterprise previously agreed on joint missile production for NASAMS, and Kongsberg-cited figures from May 2025 counted over 900 NASAMS intercepts at a 94% effectiveness rate. Norway is already an active participant in the FREYJA European anti-ballistic programme before this visit. Ukrainian reporting in early-to-mid October noted the Air Force experimenting with AI-equipped robotic turrets against drones, while the Ministry of Defence warned of faster Russian reactive drones. The Oslo visit also produced separate meetings with King Harald V, the Speaker of the Storting Masud Gharahkhani, and leaders of Norway's political parties, alongside the 20 October trilateral talks with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.