Fewer weapons - or more? Kellogg's Ukraine plan does not match Trump's election promises

A few days ago, Donald Trump introduced Keith Kellogg as his future Ukraine envoy. The ex-general has a plan for Ukraine that can hardly be implemented within 24 hours of taking office.

Donald Trump promised several times during the election campaign that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Many were all the more excited to see who he would entrust with this task.

Keith Kellogg is the man who will be the US Special Representative for Ukraine from the day of Trump's inauguration. The 80-year-old former general served in the Vietnam War and was a special forces officer in Cambodia.

He later helped the Geroge W. Bush administration to manage Iraq after the US invasion, as the Independent writes. Kellogg was briefly national security adviser during Donald Trump's first term in office. He then worked for Vice President Mike Pence.

Kellogg is no friend of Russia

Some have rubbed their eyes at other nominees: No sooner had the president-elect put his name forward than commentators recalled that Kellogg was reported to have told Congress that Ukraine offered the US the chance to eliminate a strategic enemy - Russia - without US troops and focus on the real adversary: China.

Kellogg's appointment also brought worldwide attention to a strategy paper that he published together with analyst Fred Fleitz in April 2024. Both work for the Trump-affiliated America First Policy Institute. In the publication, Kellogs and Fleitz outline how the war in Ukraine could be ended.

Freezing the war

The central points are: The conflict is frozen with an indefinite ceasefire. Ukraine continues to receive weapons from the USA, but in return undertakes to enter into peace negotiations with Russia.

Ukraine will also receive security guarantees from the USA, but will drop its demand to join NATO. According to the paper, the USA is forcing Russia to negotiate by threatening to otherwise arm Ukraine so that it can push Russia back. The USA would also reward Putin with an easing of sanctions.

Ukraine does not have to give up on regaining its lost territories, Kellogg and Fleitz write. But Kiev would have to declare its willingness to use diplomacy instead of force. And the Ukrainian government would have to realize that this would require a future diplomatic breakthrough, which is unlikely to happen before Putin leaves office.

Freezing the war is at least theoretically possible in a relatively short time. However, it would probably be many years before an actual peace solution in Kellogg's sense - by which he means a peace solution that Kiev can accept - could be reached. However, if there was no more shooting and bombing in Ukraine by the beginning of 2025, Trump could sell this as keeping his promise.

Kremlin and Kiev have arguments against Kellogg's plan

However, one argument against this plan is that Russia has been advancing in Ukraine for some time and is also reclaiming Russian territories occupied by Ukrainians. It is a lesson learned from many armed conflicts that a negotiated solution only becomes possible when both sides realize that they have nothing more to gain on the battlefield.

Both must see the stalemate as painful and damaging. This is currently not the case in Ukraine, especially from the Russian perspective. Kiev could also doubt the value of this agreement, as Ukraine has had Western security guarantees for decades, which have prevented neither the annexation of Crimea by Russia nor the Russian-controlled separatist movement in Donbass.

Nor the invasion of the Russian army in February 2022. It would therefore be understandable for the Zelensky government to doubt that the Western powers would rush to their aid if Russia were to attack and occupy Ukrainian territories again.

Friends of Russia and enemies of Nato in the Trump administration

On the US side, the strategy is also likely to lead to discussions within Trump's administration. His designated Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of NATO.

In a book, he writes that it is not a defense alliance, but a defense arrangement for Europe, paid for and executed by the US. He continues: "The defense of Europe is not our problem; we have already done it twice".

Tulsie Gabbard, the designated head of the secret service, has repeatedly and directly disseminated Russian propaganda in the past, for example about Ukrainian bioweapons laboratories. She has also argued that the conflict in Ukraine could have been prevented if the Biden administration had taken "legitimate Russian security concerns" seriously.

These positions are difficult to reconcile with those of Keith Kellogg. It is also unclear which side the soon-to-be President Trump is on.