Trump's special envoy calls for reset of US-Russia relations
President Donald Trump plans to "reset relations with Russia" and withdraw from the "endless proxy war" in Ukraine, special envoy Keith Kellogg said.
In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on March 6, Mr. Kellogg declared that “resetting relations with Russia is necessary to protect vital American national interests and ultimately prevent the United States from being bogged down in an endless proxy war,” defining Trump’s approach.
“Continuing to isolate” Russia “is no longer a viable or sustainable strategy and is certainly not a diplomatically responsible approach,” the envoy added.
Instead, Kellogg said, Trump would use “carrots and sticks on both sides” to bring Kiev and Moscow to the negotiating table. The administration would “aggressively” apply leverage, such as “seizing frozen Russian sovereign assets to rebuild and re-arm Ukraine.”
Trump halted the flow of billions of dollars in US military aid to Ukraine this week, in an attempt to force Kiev to change its negotiating stance.
After a disastrous meeting in Washington with Zelensky last week, Trump accused the Ukrainian leader of trying to secure US support for a protracted conflict with Russia, rather than seeking peace.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Zelensky had “sabotaged and undermined” Washington’s efforts. “This is a proxy war between nuclear powers – the United States, which is helping Ukraine, and Russia – and it has to stop,” the top diplomat said.
Relations between Russia and the United States are warming. High-level talks in Riyadh last month marked the first diplomatic engagement between the superpowers since Washington cut off contact in 2022 after the Ukraine conflict escalated.