Kellogg to step down as Trump’s special representative for Ukraine in January - Reuters
US President Donald Trump's special representative for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has informed his colleagues that he plans to leave his post in January 2026.
This was reported by Reuters, citing four sources, according to Censor.NET.
Kellogg is leaving his post
According to one of Reuters' sources, Kellogg has concluded that too many officials in the White House are working on the Ukraine issue and that the Trump administration fails to recognise that it is Russia, not Ukraine, that is slowly pushing forward the peace talks.
Another Reuters source said that Kellogg never intended to stay in the Trump administration for long.
Since the US president's special envoy is by law a temporary position limited to 360 days, Kellogg considers January, when the term expires, a natural time to resign, the article says.
Reuters adds that Kellogg's departure will mean Ukraine will lose a key defender in the Trump administration.
"European diplomats, including Ukrainians, considered the retired lieutenant general a sympathetic interlocutor in an administration that sometimes leaned toward Moscow's views on the causes of the war in Ukraine," the article says.
Kellogg clashed with Witkoff
The agency notes that Kellogg strongly condemned Russian attacks on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, unlike other Trump administration officials.
In addition, he occasionally clashed with another special representative involved in the peace talks, Steve Witkoff. The latter, according to Reuters, repeated some of the arguments of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and advocated Ukraine's renunciation of its own territories as part of a potential peace agreement.
