Trump Confirms Envoy Visit to Ukraine – ‘You Could Really Increase the Sanctions’

US President Donald Trump on Monday confirmed that his special envoy Keith Kellogg, tasked with ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, will push for a swift end to the war.

A source in President Zelensky’s office told AFP on Monday that Kellogg was scheduled to arrive on February 20.

Trump is ready to double down on sanctions against Russia to bring about an end to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, Kellogg said.

Sanctions enforcement on Russian President Vladimir Putin is “only about a three” on a scale of one to 10, [based] on how painful the economic pressure can be, Kellogg said, as reported by the New York Post. “You could really increase the sanctions, especially the latest sanctions,” he said.

Such threats are a hallmark of the 47th presidential administration so far. In his first three weeks in power, Trump has not only attempted to settle personal vendettas against the government departments that investigated his illegal acts in his first term and stood against his right-wing objectives in the next, but he has also imposed stiff tariffs on countries as part of his “America First” agenda, despite economists’ warnings about the adverse consequences of those taxes on the American economy.

President Joe Biden’s “bumper sticker” policy of claiming to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” without using all the instruments of pressure would end, said Kellogg, who recently sat down with Ukraine’s ambassador to Washington, Oksana Markarova, for the first time.

According to “global news platform” Semafor: “Washington has been rife with speculation that the administration would present a plan imminently.” Kellogg denied he would do so at this week’s conference in Munich.

Meanwhile, Zelensky will meet with US Vice President JD Vance on Friday at the Munich Security Conference, where they are set to discuss an end to the three-year war with Russia.

In his nightly address on Monday, Zelensky stressed again:

“It is crucial that we all work together to bring about real peace and effective security guarantees: the security of our people, our state, our economic relations, and, importantly, our resource resilience. Not just for Ukraine, but for the entire free world.”

Last week, Kellogg told right-wing news outlet Newsmax that the only person in the world who can bring an end to the invasion of Ukraine is his newly elected boss.

“The only guy that can do that in the world, and bring this to a conclusion, is Donald J. Trump,” the envoy said.