United States President-elect Donald Trump has picked a retired general, Keith Kellogg, to be his special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine war.
Trump has made ending the war – now on for nearly three years – a centrepiece of his foreign policy promises. Kellogg’s role could make him a critical figure in Trump’s plans.
But who is Kellogg – and what is known about the general’s own views on the war, and on how to end it?
Who is Keith Kellogg?
Kellogg, 80, is a retired lieutenant general. He was the chief of staff for the White House National Security Council during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021. He was also the national security adviser to Mike Pence, who was Trump’s vice president at the time.
Kellogg is a Vietnam War veteran and he was also sent to Iraq to work in the transitional government after the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.
“He was with me right from the beginning!” Trump wrote, announcing Kellogg’s nomination on his Truth Social platform.
I am honored by @realDonaldTrump's appointment to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia. It was the privilege of my life working for President Trump, and I look forward to working tirelessly to secure peace through strength while upholding… pic.twitter.com/Nj6TFFEyui
— Keith Kellogg (@generalkellogg) November 27, 2024
The special envoy position is new and points to Trump’s emphasis on diplomacy to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
What is Kellogg’s plan to end the war in Ukraine?
In April this year, Kellogg co-authored a strategy paper, with former US government official Fred Fleitz, saying that the US should negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine.
The paper blames President Joe Biden’s administration for the continuing Ukraine war. Specifically, it faults the US decision to arm Ukraine and the failure of diplomacy with Russia. It additionally accuses Biden of promoting a proxy war with Russia, through Ukraine.
The plan was published by the nonprofit think tank America First Policy Institute (AFPI), established by former Trump officials in 2021. Kellogg’s plan calls for an “America First” approach to the war.
Kellogg’s article argues – echoing Trump in many ways – that “a strong and decisive president who stood up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, “would have prevented Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. There is no evidence to suggest that Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was based on his assessment of Biden as weak, as Kellogg and Fleitz suggest.
Kellogg’s plan argues for a formal US policy to end the war, seeking a “ceasefire and negotiated settlement”.
Under this plan:
- The US would continue to arm Ukraine to allow it to defend itself against Russia. However, future US military aid would be contingent on Ukraine participating in peace talks with Russia.
- In order to convince Putin to join peace talks, NATO leaders should offer to hold off on Ukraine’s NATO membership application.
- Additionally, Russia could be offered some sanctions relief, contingent on it signing a peace agreement with Ukraine.
- It also calls for charging levies on Russian energy sales to use for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Could Kellogg’s Ukraine plan work?
Kellogg has to deal with the fact that there are two parties involved who hold different positions on how the war should end, Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera.
“Russia will negotiate until it feels like it is in a comfortable position,” Giles said. “For Ukraine, a pause in fighting can be disastrous,” he added.
Giles, who is also the author of an upcoming book, Who Will Defend Europe? explained that Western backers of Ukraine will inevitably see a ceasefire as the crisis ending. “Meanwhile, Russia will be preparing for its next move”.
He added that Kellogg will also have to ensure he has the cooperation of other officials in the upcoming Trump administration. Plans that people lay out when they are not in government do not necessarily translate into plans they enact when they are in government, he said.
Kellogg’s suggestions generally contradict Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “victory plan” for the war. Ukraine’s admission into NATO is at the heart of his plan.
The idea of holding off NATO membership for Ukraine is “one of the ways the US can exert leverage on Ukraine, but it is a misguided attempt,” Giles said, adding that Ukraine’s admission into NATO is the only long-term solution to the region’s conundrum.
While NATO members have assured Ukraine that it is on an “irreversible” path to membership, members of the alliance are sceptical of admitting Ukraine while it is at war with Russia. This is because Ukraine being part of NATO would immediately mean that the alliance as a whole would be at war with Moscow.
Zelenskyy’s plan also calls for a sustained supply of economic and military aid to Ukraine from its allies. Meanwhile, in Kellogg’s plan, the supply of arms to Ukraine is conditional.
Where does Trump stand on the Ukraine war?
While Trump has pledged to promptly end the war in Ukraine, he has not spelled out details for the exact course of action he would take to accomplish this.
“I have a very exacting plan on how to stop Ukraine and Russia,” he said in a podcast interview in September. “I can’t give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I’m not going to be able to use them. They’ll be unsuccessful. Part of it’s surprise.”
The Washington Post reported that Trump spoke to Putin in a phone call on November 7, asking him not to escalate the war and expressing interest in having further conversations to resolve the conflict. Russia denied that the call took place. On November 11, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described reports of the call as “pure fiction” and told reporters that Putin had no concrete plans of speaking to Trump.
The Republican president-elect has argued that the Biden administration is funding and arming an open-ended war in Ukraine that does not benefit the US.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Vice President JD Vance fleshed out some of the details of what Trump’s plan would potentially be, in an interview for the Shawn Ryan Show. The episode was released in September.
Vance said that Trump would begin negotiations with leaders from Moscow, Kyiv and Europe for a “peaceful settlement”.
“And what it probably looks like is the current line of demarcation between Russia and Ukraine, that becomes like a demilitarised zone.”
Without specifying the exact location of the demilitarised zone, Vance said that it would be heavily fortified to ensure Russia does not invade again. However, Vance’s plan suggests that Ukraine would have to cede some of its occupied territory to Russia. This includes parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – areas Russia has taken control of since early in the war – in addition to Crimea.
Russia has taken about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory since 2014.
Ukraine has stressed that any peace deal must involve nullifying Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories, including Crimea.
“Ukraine retains its independent sovereignty, Russia gets the guarantee of neutrality from Ukraine – it doesn’t join NATO, it doesn’t join some of these allied institutions. That is what the deal is ultimately going to look something like,” Vance told the show.
