Trump Reappoints Keith Kellogg as Ukraine Envoy, Dropping His Russia Role

The US President, Donald Trump, has reappointed retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg as special envoy to Ukraine.

Kellogg “will deal directly with President Zelensky and Ukrainian leadership,” Trump announced on Truth Social on Saturday, March 15, adding, “He knows them well, and they have a very good working relationship.”

Kellogg, a former acting national security advisor in Trump’s first term, previously served as a special envoy for both Ukraine and Russia. However, he was excluded from recent Saudi-led peace talks.

NBC News reported that a senior Russian official claimed that President Vladimir Putin saw Kellogg as too pro-Ukraine.

“Too close to Ukraine. Not our kind of person,” the anonymous official was quoted as saying.

Adding another layer of complexity, Kellogg’s daughter, Meaghan Mobbs, heads a charity that provides support for Ukraine.

Relations between Trump and Zelensky took a sharp turn for the worse last month when the US president called the Ukrainian leader a “dictator” and questioned whether he truly wanted peace. 

Despite this, Kellogg met Zelensky in Kyiv, later praising him as Ukraine’s “embattled and courageous leader” and describing their talks as “extensive and positive.”

Then, following the Oval Office angry clash between Zelensky and Trump on Feb. 28 and the military aid suspension that followed it, Kellogg argued that this move was meant as a wake-up call, likening it to “hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose.”

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“Very candidly, they brought it on themselves -- the Ukrainians,” Kellogg said at the Council on Foreign Relations on March 6.

“I think the best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose,” he said.

“You got their attention, and it’s very significant, obviously, because of the support that we give,” he said.

He insisted the pause should be temporary but noted that Trump alone would decide when aid would resume.