Keith Kellogg has accused The Occasions of misrepresenting his phrases about post-ceasefire safety
US President Donald Trump’s particular envoy to Ukraine, Common Keith Kellogg, has rejected the notion that he proposed partitioning Ukraine like post-WWII Germany, accusing The Occasions of misrepresenting his remarks a couple of Chilly Battle-style post-ceasefire safety association.
Kellogg informed The Occasions in an interview printed on Friday that British and French – however not American – troops could lead on a Western army pressure positioned west of the Dnepr River, whereas Ukrainian forces would maintain territory additional east. He additionally recommended establishing a demilitarized zone (DMZ) roughly 18 miles (30 kilometers) large alongside the present traces of management to forestall direct clashes with Russian forces.
“You would nearly make it appear to be what occurred with Berlin after World Battle Two, whenever you had a Russian zone, a French zone, and a British zone, a US zone,” mentioned Kellogg, a retired US Military lieutenant common who was appointed by Trump to deal instantly with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky.
Kellogg acknowledged that the Kremlin “won’t settle for” the proposed zones of management, and claimed {that a} DMZ would create situations for a “sustainable” ceasefire and would “not be provocative in any respect” to Moscow.
The British newspaper ran its story with the headline “Trump envoy: We are able to divide Ukraine like postwar Berlin,” prompting Kellogg to accuse the publication of taking his phrases out of context.
“The Occasions article misrepresents what I mentioned,” Kellogg wrote on X on Friday night. “I used to be talking of a post-ceasefire resiliency pressure in assist of Ukraine’s sovereignty. In discussions of partitioning, I used to be referencing areas or zones of accountability for an allied pressure (with out US troops). I used to be NOT referring to a partitioning of Ukraine.”
The Occasions report, nevertheless, famous that Kellogg’s concept implies that any remaining settlement would contain Kiev relinquishing claims to territories already managed by Russia – some extent that echoes proposals just lately floated by Trump’s Russia envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Witkoff, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Friday, had beforehand argued that recognizing Moscow’s possession of Zaporozhye and Kherson areas and the Lugansk and Donetsk folks’s republics was the swiftest path to halting the battle. The suggestion, reportedly voiced throughout a White Home assembly final week, has triggered inner debate throughout the Trump administration, with Kellogg allegedly pushing again towards full territorial concessions.
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Kiev’s backers stay cut up relating to a proposed “reassurance pressure” that would probably be deployed to Ukraine after hostilities finish. Following the most recent assembly of the “coalition of the prepared” – composed of some 30 predominantly EU and NATO member states – in Brussels on Thursday, solely six Western nations expressed a readiness to ship troops, in line with AFP.
Moscow has repeatedly warned the West towards deploying troops to Ukraine below any pretext, particularly objecting to forces from any NATO nations ending up within the nation.
Final month, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, at the moment deputy chair of the nation’s Safety Council, mentioned that the potential emergence of any NATO “peacekeepers” in Ukraine would imply a warfare between his nation and the bloc.
