The appointment of retired general Keith Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine will be one of the most powerful signals about how Donald Trump sees his future war policy if he returns to the White House.
Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general, has extensive national security experience. He has repeatedly stated the need for a quick resolution of military conflicts through negotiations and is known for his pragmatic approach to solving international crises.
Kellogg, as we have already written, is known for proposing the end of the war on the front line by forcing Kyiv and Moscow to negotiate, as well as removing the issue of Ukraine's accession to NATO from the agenda for the near future.
And the nomination of Kellogg indicates that Trump himself is thinking in this direction.
Of course, there are still almost two months until the inauguration, and a lot can happen during that time. And Trump's position may also change. Moreover, there are many supporters of a different approach in the Republican Party itself – to continue supporting Ukraine in the same regime or even increase it, and not to encourage Kyiv to end the war as soon as possible.
However, the time that has passed since the election in the USA shows that Trump is alienating supporters of this point of view. For example, he directly stated that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of the representatives of the "war party" among the Republicans, on whom Bankova made a special bet, will not be in his team. The expectations that took place in Kyiv that Pompeo's associate Hook would be appointed as a special envoy to Ukraine were also not fulfilled.
As we can see, Trump is currently nominating supporters of an early end to the war to key positions on which the policy towards Ukraine will depend in one way or another.
And this creates a difficult dilemma for the Ukrainian authorities, which strategy to choose, if, as a result, Trump will offer just such an option, the end of the war on the front line and a moratorium on Ukraine's accession to NATO.
Today, the ex-minister of foreign affairs Kuleba said that Zelensky will not agree to end the war on the front line, effectively leaving the territories captured by Russia to Russia, even if the US threatens to stop aid, which, according to the ex-minister, could lead to the collapse of the front, as the president of Ukraine previously said .
However, this interpretation looks strange. According to Kuleba's logic, it turns out that Zelenskyi will prefer the "collapse of the front", which will lead to an even greater loss of territory, rather than the option of ending the war behind the front line, under which the loss of territory will be much smaller than in the case of the continuation of the war under the conditions of stopping the American help
It is not entirely clear why the Ukrainian authorities would do this - taking into account the fact that the population, judging by the latest polls, is increasingly inclined towards negotiations and even territorial concessions in order to stop the war. And it is unlikely that he will rush to "demolish" the president if he approves such an option.
In addition, if Trump really raises the question of the rub - or negotiations with a cessation of war, or the cessation of aid - Zelenskyi's room for maneuver may become very small, because in the absence of American aid, the conditions for the end of the war for Kyiv will become much worse than a ceasefire along the line the front
Therefore, it is far from a fact that Zelensky will strongly reject, rather than agree to, Trump's proposal.
However, another important question is whether the Kremlin will agree to this proposal, whose officially stated conditions for the end of the war, like the official Ukrainian conditions, do not mean the end of the war on the front line. Putin, we will remind you, demands the transfer to him of the entire territory of four regions of Ukraine - Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
However, the exact reaction of the Kremlin to Trump's proposal to end the war, if it comes, will depend on many factors. In particular, from the position of the Russian Federation's partners from the countries of the Global South, most of them support an early end to the war, as well as from the situation on the battlefield until the inauguration of the US president.
The last moment will naturally affect Kyiv's position as well.
