US President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he was nominating staunch loyalist and retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as his Ukraine envoy, charged with ending the two-and-a-half-year Russian invasion.
Trump campaigned on a platform of ushering a swift end to the Ukraine war, boasting that he would quickly mediate a ceasefire deal between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
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But his critics have warned that the incoming Republican will likely leverage US military aid to pressure Kyiv into an agreement that left it ceding occupied territory permanently or agreeing not to join NATO.
“I am very pleased to nominate General Keith Kellogg to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia,” Trump said in a statement on social media.
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“Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration.”
A fixture on the cable news circuit, the 80-year-old national security veteran co-wrote an academic paper earlier this year calling for Washington to leverage military aid as a means of pushing for peace talks.
Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars of indispensable aid from Washington for its armed forces since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, but with the more isolationist Trump taking over the White House, supporters fear the spigot will run dry.
“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,” Kellogg's research paper for the Trumpist America First Policy Institute think tank 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 the White House national security council and national security advisor to then-vice president Mike Pence.
The proposed plan
Two key advisers to Donald Trump, Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, who served as chiefs of staff in Trump’s National Security Council during his previous presidency, put forward a plan in June to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The plan involved telling Ukraine that it would only receive more US weapons if it entered peace talks with Russia. At the same time, the US would warn Moscow that refusing to negotiate would result in increased US support for Ukraine, said Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, one of Trump's national security advisers, in an interview.
The plan developed by Kellogg and Fleitz calls for a ceasefire based on current battle lines as a prelude to peace talks.
They have presented this strategy to Trump, who responded positively, according to Fleitz. “I’m not claiming he agreed with it or agreed with every word of it, but we were pleased with the feedback we received,” he said.
However, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said that only statements made by Trump himself or authorized members of his campaign should be considered official.
The strategy proposed by Kellogg and Fleitz is the most detailed plan suggested by associates of Trump, who has previously claimed he could quickly end the war in Ukraine if elected without providing any specifics.
The core elements of the plan were detailed in a research paper published by the “America First Policy Institute,” a pro-Trump think tank in which both Kellogg and Fleitz hold leadership positions.
Kellogg stressed the importance of getting Russia and Ukraine to negotiate quickly. He said: “We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t, US support will dry up.’”
“And we tell Putin, 'You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t, we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to defeat you on the battlefield.’”
The original research paper also suggests delaying NATO membership for Ukraine would encourage Russia to negotiate.
Troop shortages
Kellogg told Voice of America at the Republican convention in July that Ukraine's options were “quite clear.”
“If Ukraine doesn't want to negotiate, fine, but then accept the fact that you can have enormous losses in your cities and accept the fact that you will have your children killed, accept the fact that you don't have 130,000 dead, you will have 230,000-250,000,” he said.
Trump's announcement came as the outgoing administration of Democrat Joe Biden was urging Ukraine to enlist more recruits by reducing the minimum age of conscription to 18.
Facing a much larger enemy with more advanced weapons and with stocks of volunteers dwindling, Ukraine is facing an “existential” recruitment crunch, a senior administration official told reporters.
“The simple truth is that Ukraine is not currently mobilizing or training enough soldiers to replace their battlefield losses while keeping pace with Russia's growing military,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
He was pressed on what Washington considers an appropriate minimum age and he replied that “we think there's real value in them considering lowering the recruiting age to 18” – in line with the US benchmark.
He added that an additional 160,000 troops would be “on the low end” to fill out Ukraine's ranks – but “a good start.”
Ukraine's population has fallen by more than a quarter since its mid-1990s peak of 52 million, and authorities are desperate to shield the younger generation – but a US congressional report in June estimated the average Ukrainian soldier is 40.
Zelensky signed a decree in April lowering the draft age from 27 to 25 but the move did not alleviate the chronic troop shortages, according to US officials.
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