In November, Donald Trump nominated retired General Keith Kellogg as a special Ukrainian peace envoy to lead negotiations on Russia’s full-scale war. But after the first phone calls with Kyiv and Moscow, he said the talks would be led by a different person — his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
ADVERTISEMENTDonald Trump made a couple of key phone calls on Wednesday: first, he rang Russian President Vladimir Putin and almost immediately after that, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking to both about potentially moving forward with peace talks.
The US president ending the diplomatic isolation of his Russian counterpart and his statement afterwards that Trump and Putin agreed to “work together, very, very closely, including visiting each other’s nations” sent shockwaves in Kyiv and Europe and overshadowed more pertinent questions, such as the negotiations team line-up announced by Trump.
“I have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to lead the negotiations which, I feel strongly, will be successful,” Trump said.
However, Witkoff was previously named as Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, while retired General Keith Kellogg was initially tasked with leading the Ukraine-Russia case. Has Trump changed his envoy?
Retired US Army general or real estate tycoon?
In July 2023, as he was heading to Ukraine, Kellogg…
