President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia was excluded from high-level talks on ending the war after the Kremlin said it didn’t want him there, a U.S. administration official and a Russian official told NBC News. Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg was conspicuously absent from two recent summits in Saudi Arabia — one with Russian officials and the other with Ukrainians — even though the talks come under his remit. “Together,” Trump said in announcing Kellogg’s nomination in November, “we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.” But Kellogg did not attend U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on Feb. 18. Russian President Vladimir Putin thought he was too pro-Ukraine, a senior Russian official with direct knowledge of the Kremlin’s thinking told NBC News. “Kellogg is a former American general, too close to Ukraine. Not our kind of person, not of the caliber we are looking for,” according to the official, who is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. A U.S. official in the Trump administration, who is also not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that Russia did not want Kellogg involved. The official did not know when that was communicated to the White House. Where this leaves Kellogg is unclear.
Kellogg’s office did not respond to requests for comment on why he has not been involved in the negotiations and whether Russia had requested that he not attend. National Security Council spokesman James Hewitt said Trump had “utilized the talents of multiple senior administration officials to assist in the bringing the war in Ukraine to a peaceful resolution.” He added that Kellogg remained “a valued part of the team, especially as it relates to talks with our European allies.”
Ending the war
Kellogg, 80, is a staunch Trump loyalist who served in various roles in Trump’s first term, including a stint as Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser.
Before he was confirmed as Trump’s envoy for Russia-Ukraine peace in January, he wrote about what he called the Biden administration’s “incompetent” foreign policies.
In a paper for the America First Policy Institute, which was founded to promote Trump’s policies, he suggested that to end the war the United States should arm Ukraine and strengthen its defenses, thus ensuring that “Russia will make no further advances and will not attack again after a cease-fire or peace agreement.” “Future American military aid, however, will require Ukraine to participate in peace talks with Russia,” Kellogg and his co-author, Fred Fleit, wrote. During his presidential campaign, Trump said that it was a top priority to end the war, which started in February 2022 when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbor, and that he would halt hostilities “24 hours” after taking office. The war has raged on after Trump became president for a second time, with Russia making slow progress on the battlefield in Ukraine and pressing Ukrainian forces that had taken a sliver of Russian territory across the border in Kursk.
On Feb. 11, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, went to Moscow and spent 3½ hours with Putin. There is no official account of their meeting. Witkoff had traveled to Russia to help secure the release of Marc Fogel, an American teacher held for 3½ years for a minor medical cannabis infraction. In a CBS News interview, Witkoff, a New York real estate developer and a friend of Trump’s, called his hourslong meeting with Putin a “trust building” assignment from Trump. He said that he was the only U.S. official present at the meeting and that he carried a message for Putin from Trump. Witkoff also said Putin “had something for me to transmit back to the president” but did not say what it was. The following day, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had spoken with Putin and that they had “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.” “We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations,” he added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later said that during the 90-minute call, Putin “expressed readiness to receive American officials in Russia regarding areas of mutual interest, including, of course, the topic of Ukrainian settlement.” On Feb. 13, Trump announced a list of diplomats who would attend the talks with Russia. Witkoff, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and national security adviser Michael Waltz were on the team led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio Kellogg was not on the list. A second U.S. official told NBC News at the time that the decision stung him.
A representative for Witkoff would not comment when NBC News asked whether his boss discussed Kellogg’s exclusion with Putin. Asked last week whether Russian officials had requested that Kellogg not be included in the high-level talks, Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that it was up to American leaders to “fix their delegation” and that Russia’s diplomats had “great experience of dealing with different envoys.” Andrei Fedorov, a former deputy foreign minister who maintains close ties with the Kremlin, went further, telling NBC News that Kellogg was “not the person with whom Russia will negotiate with” because his position on the talks was to freeze the front line in Ukraine. Russia wants Kyiv’s forces to withdraw from Ukrainian regions where there is still fighting, including the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia administrative regions, known as oblasts, Fedorov, said. Russia illegally annexed the regions, along with Donetsk and Luhansk, in September 2022.
Little was said about the war in Ukraine after Rubio and his team met with Russian officials in Riyadh on Feb. 18, although Rubio did announce that the countries had agreed to restore embassy staffing. Trump has since played hardball with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with relations reaching a low point after their extraordinary Oval Office spat on Feb. 28. The United States subsequently paused intelligence sharing and providing security assistance to Ukraine.
The pause was lifted Tuesday after a Ukrainian delegation agreed to a proposal for a 30-day interim ceasefire at a meeting in Saudi Arabia with Rubio and his team Kellogg was not present. On Thursday, Trump dispatched Witkoff to Russia again. Shortly after he arrived, Putin said at a news conference that he agreed “with the proposals to stop the hostilities” but that there were issues that needed to be discussed. He added that he may need to “have a phone call with Trump.”
