In November, Donald Trump appointed the retired general Keith Kellogg as a special envoy for peace in Ukraine. But after his recent calls with Kyiv and Moscow, he said that talks would be led by another person: his envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
Donald Trump made two important phone calls on Wednesday: he first called Russian President Vladimir Putin and, almost immediately afterwards, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, to evoke with them the peace talks in Ukraine.
The American president claims to have agreed with Vladimir Putin of “Work together, very, very closely, including by visiting the respective countries”.
Donald Trump also declares to have “Asked the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and the Ambassador and Special Steve Witkoff Envoy to carry out the negotiations which, I am convinced, will be crowned success “.
However, Steve Witkoff had been appointed previously Special Envoy of Donald Trump for the Middle East, while retirement general Keith Kellogg was initially responsible for carrying out negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. Did the American president changed his envoy?
General of the US retired army or real estate tycoon?
In July 2023, when he went to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg drew attention for the first time after defending Washington’s decision to send weapons to submunitions to Kyiv, declaring: “When you make the decision to support a nation at war, give it all the means necessary to end it. War is war”.
In November, after winning the presidential election, Donald Trump appointed the Lieutenant General of the US retired army to the post of special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
In June, Reuters reported that Keith Kellogg and another of Donald Trump’s main advisers, Frederick H. Fleitz, proposed to stop military aid to Ukraine unless Kyiv accepts to carry out peace negotiations with Russia. The two men would also have proposed to freeze the front lines in their current position and to remove from the table the membership of Ukraine at NATO.
Washington warned Moscow that Any refusal to negotiate would result in increased support from the United States to Ukrainehowever, said Keith Kellogg in an interview.
Last Wednesday, he announced that he would participate in the Munich on security conference, scheduled for this week, to discuss the end of the war. “I can’t wait to talk about the (Donald Trump) lens to end the bloody and costly war in Ukraine”wrote Keith Kellogg on X.
But it was not the retired officer of the US military who went to Moscow a few days before the security conference, but Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
Steve Witkoff in Moscow
Tuesday, Steve Witkoff went to the Russian capital to recover American citizen Marc FogL, a teacher who spent more than three years in pre -trial detention in Moscow for drug possession.
First, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov denied all this information, declaring that the Kremlin had no information on the arrival of Steve Witkoff.
Later, the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, admitted that Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Ryabkov, had a meeting with the United States Ambassador, Lynne Tracy, but N ‘ Not specified if Steve Witkoff had also participated.
Meanwhile, several American media have reported that Steve Witkoff had other meetings in the Russian capital.
According to the New York Times, the latter’s mission in Moscow is not quite a surprise. Several weeks ago, Donald Trump would have secretly expanded Steve Witkoff’s mandate beyond the Middle East affairs, responsible for establishing a negotiation channel with Russia and exploring the options for a “Pacific war resolution”.
ADVERTISEMENTReal estate investor, Steve Witkoff has little diplomatic references. However, at the beginning of the year, he was “the man of the situation” of Donald Trump during the negotiations on a cease-fire and an exchange of hostages between Israel and Hamas, alongside Brett McGurk , civil servant of the Biden administration, and the Prime Minister Qatari Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
According to the New York Times, its “Style of direct, frank and aggressive negotiation contributed to obtaining a cease-fire agreement, under which 33 hostages held by Hamas were to be exchanged for around 1,000 Palestinian prisoners”.
The manager of the Volodymyr Office Zelensky, Andriy Yermak, himself met Steve Witkoff in Auschwitz on January 29, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the release of the Nazi death campwhere they discussed the “challenges posed by news in the Western world”.
However, it is still unknown what specific powers have been conferred on Steve Witkoff and in which they differ from those of Keith Kellogg, the United States Special Envoy for Russia and Ukraine.
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