Donald Trump envoy in Kyiv as US policy shifts to Russia

Houses destroyed by Russian guided aerial bombs in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson. FILE PIC/AP

Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky and military commanders, as the US shifted its policy away from years of efforts to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kellogg's trip came a day after US President Donald Trump suggested that Kyiv was to blame for the war, which enters its fourth year next week, and talks between top American and Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia sidelined Ukraine and its European supporters. Trump's comments are likely to vex Ukrainian officials, who have urged the world to help them fight Russia's full-scale invasion that began on February 24, 2022.

The battlefield has also brought grim news for Ukraine in recent months. A relentless onslaught in eastern areas by Russia's bigger army is grinding down Ukrainian forces, which are slowly but steadily being pushed backward at some points on the 1,000-km front line. Trump told reporters at his Florida residence Tuesday that Ukraine "should have never started" the war and "could have made a deal" to prevent it.

Kellogg said his visit was "a chance to have some good, substantial talks". Zelensky cancelled his planned Wednesday trip to Saudi Arabia in what some analysts saw as an attempt to deny legitimacy to the US-Russia talks about the future of his country.

American officials have signalled that Ukraine's hopes of joining NATO in order to ward off Russian aggression after reaching a possible peace agreement won't happen. Zelensky says any settlement will require US security commitments to keep Russia at bay.

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