Us army general or NY tycoon: Who will lead Ukraine-Russia talks?

Donald Trump made a couple of key phone calls on Wednesday: first, he rang Russian President Vladimir Putin and almost immediately after that, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking to both about potentially moving forward with peace talks.

The US president ending the diplomatic isolation of his Russian counterpart and his statement afterwards that Trump and Putin agreed to “work together, very, very closely, including visiting each other’s nations” sent shockwaves in Kyiv and Europe and overshadowed more pertinent questions, such as the negotiations team line-up announced by Trump. 

“I have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to lead the negotiations which, I feel strongly, will be successful,” Trump said. 

However, Witkoff was previously named as Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, while retired General Keith Kellogg was initially tasked with leading the Ukraine-Russia case. Has Trump changed his envoy? 

Retired US Army general or real estate tycoon?

In July 2023, as he was heading to Ukraine, Kellogg first drew attention to himself after he defended Washington’s decision to send cluster munitions to Kyiv, saying: “When you make the decision to support a nation at war, give all of the means necessary to finish it. War is war.” 

“If you want Ukrainians to win,” he said, “you give them everything you can to win that fight,” Kellogg exclaimed at the time.

In November, after winning the presidential elections, Trump nominated the retired US Army lieutenant general as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

In June, Reuters reported that Kellogg and another of Trump’s top advisors, Frederick H Fleitz, proposed ceasing military aid to Ukraine unless Kyiv agreed to hold peace negotiations with Russia. The two also reportedly proposed freezing the front lines in their current position and removing Ukraine’s NATO accession from the table. 

Washington would also warn Moscow that any refusal to negotiate would result in increased US support for Ukraine, Kellogg said in an interview.

Last Wednesday, Kellogg said he would attend the Munich Security Conference — set for this week — to discuss ending the war. “I look forward to speaking about (Trump’s) goal to end the bloody and costly war in Ukraine,” Kellogg wrote in a post on X.

But it wasn’t the retired US Army officer who went to Moscow just days before the security conference. It was Trump’s special Middle East envoy, Witkoff. 

Witkoff in Moscow

On Tuesday, Witkoff visited the Russian capital to retrieve US citizen Marc Fogel, a teacher who spent over three years in custody there on drug possession charges.

Earlier that day, media outlets reported that a private jet owned by Witkoff — and frequently used by Trump in the past — had landed in Moscow. 

At first, Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied all the reports, saying the Kremlin had no information about Witkoff’s reported arrival. 

Later, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova admitted that Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov had held a scheduled meeting with US Ambassador Lynne Tracy. She didn’t comment on whether Witkoff also participated in that meeting. 

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Meanwhile, US outlets reported that Witkoff had more meetings in the Russian capital. According to Fox News broadcaster Sean Hannity, Witkoff had a three-and-a-half-hour meeting with Putin while in Moscow, all to arrange Fogel’s release. 

According to The New York Times, Witkoff’s mission to Moscow did not come entirely as a surprise. Several weeks ago, Trump allegedly secretly expanded Witkoff’s mandate beyond Middle Eastern affairs, tasking him with establishing a negotiating channel with Russia and exploring options for a “peaceful resolution of the war”.

With his real estate background, Witkoff hardly has any diplomatic credentials. Still, earlier this year, he was Trump’s “man in the room” in negotiations on a ceasefire and hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas alongside Biden administration official Brett McGurk and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

According to NYT, his “direct, outspoken, and aggressive negotiation style contributed to securing a ceasefire agreement, under which 33 hostages held by Hamas were to be exchanged for approximately 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.”

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From Munich to the Middle East

It might also be that his connections in the Middle East could help him negotiate the deals between Ukraine and Russia, specifically those with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. 

While Qatar does not provide Ukraine with military support or endorse sanctions against Russia, since 2023 it has been acting as a major mediator between Kyiv and Moscow to secure the return of children illegally deported by Russia from occupied Ukrainian territories. 

As for Saudi Arabia, at the end of January, the Head of Zelenskyy’s office Andriy Yermak said preparations were underway for Ukraine’s president to visit Saudi Arabia. 

Yermak himself met Witkoff at Auschwitz on 29 January to mark the 80th anniversary of the Nazi death camp’s liberation, where they discussed “the news challenges fro the Western world”.

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It remains unclear what specific powers Witkoff has been granted and how they differ from those of Kellogg, the official US special envoy for Russia and Ukraine.

However, there are more signs pointing at the possibility of the Middle East, not Munich, playing a major part in any possible deal that would end Russia’s war against Ukraine.