High-stakes talks this afternoon between Volodymyr Zelensky and Keith Kellogg, Washington’s special envoy for the war in Ukraine, ended on an ominous note after their post-meeting press conference was cancelled last-minute.
While Zelensky’s office gave no reason for the cancellation, other than that it was in accordance with US wishes, the development will inevitably stoke fears that talks were bumpier than expected.
A lot was riding on this meeting. In fact, Kellogg’s decision to stay three days in Kyiv underscores its importance. US officials have typically limited their visits to a single day for security reasons.
Upon arrival in the Ukrainian capital yesterday, Kellogg insisted he would “sit and listen” to Kyiv’s concerns and that he understood Ukrainians’ “need for security guarantees” in any post-war settlement.
But things have moved quickly since then. And the war of words which erupted yesterday between Zelensky and Trump – culminating in the US president labelling Zelensky “a dictator without elections” – created a strained backdrop to today’s meeting.
Moscow, meanwhile, has been watching the deepening rift between Washington and Kyiv with glee. Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and deputy head of Putin’s security council, declared: “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud”.
Today, Kellogg and Zelensky were expected to partake in some damage limitation. The former would likely try to persuade the Ukrainian president that the US isn’t selling Ukraine out to Russia, while Zelensky would attempt to stop the feud escalating, knowing only too well that he is the one who stands to lose far more from strained ties with Washington.
“It is crucial for us that the meeting and our overall cooperation with America be constructive,” he said in nightly address yesterday evening.
The cancellation of this afternoon’s scheduled press conference may have been Trump’s call, not his special envoy’s. Sources in Kyiv told the BBC this evening that Kellogg appears increasingly “sidelined” by the Trump administration.
There is reason to think Kellogg, a retired US Army lieutenant general who served as a national security official during Trump’s first term, is serious about not wanting to throw Ukraine under the bus.
He has adopted a more aggressive stance towards Moscow than many of Trump’s other advisors, proposing that Washington could increase sanctions to push Russia towards a peace deal. He also appeared to be in favour of the Biden administration’s approval for Ukraine to strike military targets inside Russia with long-range missiles.
But, even if he is more sympathetic to Kyiv than Trump, it’s difficult to know how much power he really has to call the shots or diverge from whatever latest position is adopted by the erratic US president.
While Kellogg is often referred to in short-hand as “America’s Ukraine envoy”, his official title is “Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia”.
Yet his interaction with Moscow may be limited, or indeed non-existent.
Kellogg has confirmed that Washington is conducting separate discussions with Russia and Ukraine and, while he is leading the US-Ukraine track, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy who was credited with playing “a key role” in brokering the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, is in charge of the US-Russia track. The two envoys will then return to Washington to compare notes and determine the next steps.
The structure of these talks runs the risk of seeing Kyiv liaising with a more peripheral American representative.
According to US officials, when Trump announced his team for who would negotiate with the Russians, Kellogg was stung to be left off the list.
Witkoff – who, unlike Kellogg, filled one of the American seats at the table in Riyadh earlier this week and has a friendship with Trump dating back decades – may hold more sway over the US president.
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