Ukraine Says It Struck Russian Oil Depot, Radar Station

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on November 27 tapped Keith Kellogg, a retired army lieutenant general who has long served as a top adviser to Trump on defense issues, as his nominee to be special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

“Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration,” Trump said on social media.

Kellogg “was with me right from the beginning,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!”

Kellogg’s nomination comes after Trump’s criticism during the 2024 presidential campaign of the billions of dollars that the United States has poured into Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Trump also said he could end the war within 24 hours of retaking the White House, a statement that has been interpreted as meaning that Ukraine would have to surrender territory that Russia now occupies.

Kellogg has already put forth a plan for ending the war that involves freezing the battle lines where they are and forcing Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiating table, Reuters reported in June.

According to Reuters, Kellogg has advocated telling the Ukrainians that if they don’t come to the negotiating table, U.S. support would dry up, while telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that if he doesn’t come to the table, the United States would give the Ukrainians “everything they need to kill you in the field.”

NATO membership for Ukraine would be off the table as part of the incentive for Russia to come along, while putting it back on would be punishment for holding back.

Kellogg, 80, earlier this year wrote that “bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties.”

He made the statements in a research paper written for the America First Policy Institute, a think tank formed after Trump left office in 2021.

“The United States would continue to arm Ukraine and strengthen its defenses to ensure Russia will make no further advances and will not attack again after a cease-fire or peace agreement,” the document said.

“Future American military aid, however, will require Ukraine to participate in peace talks with Russia.”

Kellogg served in several positions during Trump’s first term, including as chief of staff on Trump’s national security council and national-security adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

Mikhail Alexseev, a professor of political science at San Diego State University whose research focuses on Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, told RFE/RL that the appointment signals “the intent to enforce some kind of cease-fire and conflict settlement which Trump said he would try to achieve within 24 hours.”

Alexseev said Kellogg seems to be a straight shooter who would “detect very quickly whether a peace proposal would be unrealistic” and would be able to see through “Putin’s repeated record of breaking agreements.”

Alexseev doesn’t believe the proposal to get the parties to negotiate is going to work but said Kellogg “would be among the first to see why and how it wouldn’t work.”

Mark Cancian, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Relations, told RFE/RL that negotiations will be “difficult,” because the “two sides are so far apart. Russia thinks its winning. Ukraine wants all its territory back, including Crimea, reparations, war crimes. [The Trump team] has indicated that they’ll use U.S. aid as a tool against both sides. Maybe that will work.”

Cancian adds that he also expects to see “personal diplomacy.” He expects that Trump “will meet personally with both Putin and [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy. That is his style. I mean, he’s a New York real estate developer, and to get something done, you threaten, you bluster, but then in the end, you sit down face to face, and you make a deal, because if you don’t make a deal, you don’t make any money.”

Russian Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told a UN Security Council meeting that any decision by Trump’s incoming administration to cut support for Ukraine would be a “death sentence” for the Ukrainian Army.

“Even if we’re to lay to one side the prediction that Donald Trump will cut assistance to Ukraine, which for the Ukrainian Army would essentially be a death sentence, it is becoming clearer that he and his team will, in any case, conduct an audit of the assistance provided to Kyiv,” Polyansky said.

Polyansky said Russia had repeatedly offered to negotiate, but Ukraine and its Western backers have favored escalation. Ukraine has consistently rejected Russian offers to negotiate because Moscow’s conditions, including accepting Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory, have been unacceptable to Kyiv.

The Russian diplomat also accused the Biden administration of trying through its increased support to Ukraine to create a “mess, both in Russia and with the new team in the White House.”

He warned the decision by the Biden administration and its European allies to authorize the Ukrainian military to use long-range missiles against targets inside Russia had “placed the world on the brink of a global nuclear conflict” and said Russia would respond decisively.

“I will be frank, we believe that it is our right to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries who allow the use of weapons against our facilities.”

Speaking earlier at the same Security Council session, UN Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca highlighted recent Russian long-range missile strikes on Ukraine and called the use of ballistic missiles and related threats against Ukraine “a very dangerous, escalatory development.”

U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood told the session Washington would “continue to surge security assistance to Ukraine to strengthen its capabilities, including air defense, and put Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield.”

With reporting by Reuters