Donald Trump’s designated special envoy for Ukraine and Russia said the president-elect wants the biggest war in Europe since WWII to end as soon as possible, as it’s set to enter its third year in February.
Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who served in Trump’s first administration, told “America Reports” on Wednesday that the “carnage” of the war, which began after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, needs to end quickly.
“The Russian casualties, the Ukrainian casualties, the damage to their cities — this is a war that needs to end. And I think he [Trump] can do it in the near term,” Kellogg said.
“I really do have a lot of confidence in his ability to actually get to a position where this war is actually over. And I think what people need to understand — he’s not trying to give something to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin or to the Russians. He’s actually trying to save Ukraine and save their sovereignty, and he’s going to make sure that it’s equitable and that it’s fair.”
Trump repeatedly said on the 2024 campaign trail he could settle the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours.
At a Mar-a-Lago news conference on Tuesday, Trump said he knows Putin would like to meet with him but believes such a meeting would be inappropriate until he’s officially sworn in as president on Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
He added that he’d like to see the fighting come to an end within six months.
“Look, Russia is losing a lot of young people, and so is Ukraine, and it should have never been started,” he said. “That’s a war that should have never happened.”
Kellogg said he’d like to set an even shorter timetable with a goal of 100 days to end the war.
“Let’s set it at 100 days and move all the way back and figure a way we can do this in the near term to make sure that the solution is solid, it’s sustainable, and that this war ends so that we stop the carnage,” he told Fox News anchor Sandra Smith. “I think that’s going to be very, very important to do. It’s going to be important for our national security. It’s a part of our vital national interests, and it’s also good for Europe as well and the globe as well.”
A senior U.S. defense official said in October that Russia has had more than 600,000 casualties since 2022, and in September alone, their forces sustained “more casualties in terms of both killed and wounded in action than in any other month of the war.”
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy, who met with Trump for the first time in New York in late September, said the incoming U.S. president is “strong and unpredictable” and he would like that “unpredictability” to be “directed primarily toward the Russian Federation.”
United Nations deputy human rights chief Nada Al-Nashif said earlier this week that more than 12,300 civilians, including over 650 children, have been killed in Ukraine since the onset of the war.
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