Trump is ready to strengthen sanctions against Russia to end the war in Ukraine - Kellogg
Kyiv • UNN
Trump's special envoy Keith Kellogg said he was ready to strengthen sanctions against Russia to end the war in Ukraine. According to him, the current restrictions are rated only a “three” out of ten.
U.S. President Donald Trump is ready to strengthen U.S. sanctions against Russia to end Russia's war against Ukraine. This was stated by Trump's special representative for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, in an interview with The New York Post, UNN reports.
Details
According to Kellogg, the sanctions against Russia are rated "only a three" on a scale of one to ten on how painful economic pressure can be. The US sanctions themselves - for example, those targeting Russia's lucrative energy sector - are nominally twice as high, but there is still room for them to be strengthened.
"They could have really strengthened the sanctions, especially the latest sanctions [targeting oil production and exports]. This has opened up space for action. And if there's anyone who understands what leverage is, it's President Donald Trump, and you can see that from what he's done recently [in addressing other foreign issues]," Kellogg said.
According to Kellogg, last Thursday, Trump gathered "his entire approved team" of national security advisers and cabinet members in the Oval Office, where they discussed how to use all elements of national power to end the war.
"The solution to the Russian-Ukrainian war is essentially the work of the entire administration, that is, a whole-of-government approach," the special representative said. - "We got the national security team to talk about it-the president, the vice president, the national security adviser, secretaries of State [and] Treasury, the National Security Council, all working together."
While the US president this week raised the possibility of a deal with Ukraine on access to its rare earth elements, which are crucial to US national security, Kellogg said that the president first "wants to stop the killing - just stop it - and then go from there" in future negotiations.
"I think we have some opportunities, and fortunately I'm working on major deals," Kellogg said. - "He wrote The Art of the Deal. I would not exclude anything from his thoughts."
The goal is reportedly to put an end to the violence before negotiating the difficult issues of a peaceful settlement, as "you can't get out of this war by killing," given Russia's lack of interest in preventing massive casualties among its own troops.
"For Russia, it's like it's in the DNA of military operations - essentially, you're fighting a war of attrition," he said.
"And so the pressure cannot be just military. You have to put economic pressure, you have to put diplomatic pressure, some type of military pressure and the leverage that you're going to use underneath that to make sure that [it goes] where we want it to go," he explained.
