PBS News Hour - Full Show - Keith Kellogg breaks down Trump's Ukraine strategy and Putin's negotiating style

Episode Date: February 28, 2026

President Trump famously said that he would end Russia's war against Ukraine on "day one" of his return to the White House. Today, he is 13 months into his second term and the war is starting its fifth year. Compass Points moderator Nick Schifrin discusses the administration's strategy for ending the war and what's ahead with retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, the president's recent envoy to Ukraine. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

War and peace. Russia's full-scale invasion enters its fifth year. The war is a brutal, bloody stalemate, and diplomacy appears deadlocked. Tonight, President Trump's recent envoy to Ukraine takes us inside the administration's strategy for ending the war. Explains how we got here and what's ahead. Coming up on Compass Points. Hello and welcome to Compass Points. President Trump famously said on the campaign trail that he would end Russia's war against Ukraine on day one of his return to the White House. Today, the president is 13 months into his second term, and the war is starting its fifth year. Ukraine is enduring a relentless bombardment, including against its power system during a bitterly cold winter, and civilian casualties are at an all-time high. Here to tonight, today to give us an inside look at the state of the conflict and the negotiations to try and end it is retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg. He was President Trump's special envoy to Ukraine until the end of last year, and he's now co-chair,

of American Security at the America First Policy Institute. General Kellogg, thanks very much. Welcome. Thank you. It's good to be here. Appreciate it. You often argue that Russia is not winning in Ukraine and you recently said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is looking for a way out but he can't psychologically get there. Why do you think Putin's looking for a way out and what could that look like? Well I think when you look at just the sheer numbers alone,

first of all when I say he can't get his way out of it, you know, he's not winning. And what I mean by not winning is he's really never gone beyond the land he's got right now. He hasn't crossed Neeper River. He hasn't got the river that divides Ukraine, basically. He hasn't got to Kiev. He's added two new NATO members, both in Finland and Sweden, which they're pretty good. So his definition of winning is not mine. Now, and I use this as a data point.

So when the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, they left after losing 18,000, he suffered between 1.2 and 1.1.1.000. He's suffered between 1.2 and 1.4 million casualties, dead and wounded. So I think he's got himself a problem where he can't really get out based on the losses he's taken, the equipment he's taken, and he's driven himself to be a regional power, not a full power. So I think he does want to become a Nicholas the second, the last hour of Russia, where somebody shoots him. But I think he's worried about the fact that he's had those losses. People haven't turned on them yet.

But if you keep sustaining losses like that, eventually, you're going to move into the area of what we call White Russia, which is west of the Urales. And then the people are going to start saying, what's going on here? And you start to see the military bloggers right now saying, what's going on, what's our strategy? And I think they've reached a point after four years of war

with their frontline units have been mauled. They don't have the military capacity to be able to continue the offensive. beyond where they've gone. And it's sort of like a trap. And he's going to say, well, I've got to get a victory. If I don't get a victory, somebody's going to probably try to eliminate me. There is, of course, the question of how to deal with him, though.

I mean, he is ultimately the single decider when it comes to Russia. He is in negotiations with the United States right now. The lead negotiator for President Trump, Steve Whitkoff, recently said this about Putin on Fox News. He's never been anything other than straight with me. And I say that and I get attacked. But that's an accurate statement. Never been anything other than straight with me. Is that your assessment of Vladimir Putin?

Well, here's my assessment of Vladimir Putin. As long as you realize that President Putin was a KGB colonel, the furthest west he was ever, and was, other than like trips to Alaska, the station was dressed in Germany. And you just have to understand the personality, and they understand the Slavic and the Russian personality, and then kind of say, do you really trust? a guy like that. You know, I keep going back, let's say back to 1938, when Neville Chamberlain

said he trusted Hitler. Well, history proved that not to be good. And so the question of, you really trust a guy like that and circle around him. So I think you have to be, have healthy skepticism about what his objectives are. And any KGB agent, a good one, would probably tell you one thing and mean something else. There's a bottom line question, of course, whether Vladimir Putin is even willing to negotiate or willing to agree to some kind of peace deal. You know, two senior European intelligence officials told reporters at the Munich Security conference a couple weeks ago that Putin is not negotiating in good faith. I mean, do you agree? Is there a deal that Putin would even agree to?

Yeah, I think right now, if I was advising him, to declare victory and go home, you know, because you're not going to go up the land you've got. but the reason why he wants that part of the Donbass, Donetsk province, in eastern Ukraine, right. Is you look at the three fortified cities that are still left in defensible terrain, and I've walked that terrain, I've been on it. And it's really the last piece of really defensible terrain

before Herkeev, which is the second city. Second largest city in Ukraine, yeah. And that gets you to Kiev. So if you're willing to accept the fact that he's a Jeffersonian Democrat and that this is as far he's going to go, Okay, but history has shown that in real politics, that he's probably got a desire to conquer, at least get to Kiev or make them neutralize him

to such a degree that it's kind of like because Kissinger just want to have basically a neutral power. And I really, people don't understand the size, I think, not only the war, which is the largest war in Europe since World War II, but Ukraine's a huge country. And at the end of this, the Ukrainians want to have an army of 800,000. Think about that. No army in Europe's at large.

None. Or is battle tested? As battle tested. So the new axis for the West will probably stretch through Poland and Ukraine down into Romania as opposed to where it used to be, which is in the Baltics, the German countries in France. So if your assessment is that Putin still wants to subjugate Ukraine essentially, and that's the main goal, certainly assessment shared by the Europeans I talked to, many Americans I talk to, You keep talking in public about how Putin is the impediment to progress.

But here is what President Trump said about this on February 13th. Russia wants to make a deal, and Zelensky is going to have to get moving, otherwise it's going to miss a great opportunity. He has to move. What should we understand about why, at least it seems to a lot of people, President Trump continues to pressure or blame Zelensky and not Vladimir Putin? Well, I won't speak with the president, but when you look at it, the overtures that are brought back to him

are business related where you've got Kareil Dmitriov who's the Russian sovereign wealth fund. And when he starts talking like trillions of dollars are available, which I don't believe, and that kind of sways you to where you're thinking. And Steve being a businessman, just kind of looks like that. I take a different approach.

You know, I look at the guy, what he really is, where he meaning Putin, where he came from, and that I don't think he does have. of ulterior motives. He just can't realize him. And I think if you come from that perspective, that's where the Europeans come from, is that do we really want to take a chance on this guy? And I think most of them today, I was just in Cambridge, UK last week. They're not willing to go there. And I don't want to see World War III restart. I don't want to see my grandchildren involved in that. And we've made mistakes in the past. And I would prefer err on the side of caution with

Putin and you say, you're going to go as far as you went. This is where you're going to be. Yeah. Take it and go home. You mentioned business deals. I want to bring up a tweet or a post that you had on X. So this week, the U.S. declined to support a U.N. General Assembly resolution supporting, quote, lasting peace in Ukraine, U.S. chose to abstain. And in response, you wrote this. Is not four years of war enough? Is not missing children, shelling of cities, and the killing of innocence enough. It is not a business deal. It is war. Why'd you write that? Well, I believe that. I mean, being a former soldier, you don't approach this fight as just a business deal. It's a war. They've invested a lot out of there. You've got to understand the terrain that's on the ground.

And to get there, and, you know, when I was talking about the UN resolution that was passed, it was really a simple resolution. It was stopped the war. The General Assembly, no less. No legal binding at all. Yeah, I mean, and return the children. thousands of children, said, okay, that sounds like a pretty good idea to me, bring the children back, stop the war. And so that's the reason it was there. And this reason I said that.

But are you saying that the U.S. team is now approaching this as a business deal rather than international security? I think they always have. I think that is an error that if you approach it that way, there is always an economic aspect to it. And I think what they have to do is understand just a game of wills. You know, this actually goes back to me to basically 1958 when, you know, they wrote the, when there were books there and written about real politics and real, hard, realistic politics.

And I think that's where we're at today. I think we're back to spheres of influence and our spheres, the primary one is Latin Americans. But when you say that's an error, what's the impact of that error? What's the impact of approaching these talks in that way rather than the way that you would? Well, I think you operate, as any nation should, operates from strength, and we're a really good nation. To me, there's, you know, when you look at the United States, there's one primacy, the United States, and there's no really second, and there's third, fourth, fifth, and six.

And I think we operate from that aspect, that there's no other power on Earth as strong as we are. play your strength. It's sort of like an American poker game. If you go all in, the other side doesn't know. Do you really have the cards or not? And I think we, we, the United States, have got the cards to force Putin to say, time for you to go home, time to call it a day, time to end this war. Putin is not going to win this war. I don't think he's got the wherewithal to do so. He doesn't have what I would turn the legs, the combat power to go much further. It's a depleted military. Economically is being hammered.

It's a petro state. When you look at Euro's oil, it's now traded in $40 a barrel. Where I think Brent's being traded, which is the benchmark, of $70 a barrel. It's a real problem for it. You use the word cards, and I have to, I'm reminded of a moment last year that I have to ask you about. So like I said, you were in this position until December 31st. And on February 28, 2025, the Oval Office hosted a moment that has become so infamous the words Zelenskyd has really become a warning to other foreign officials who are visiting President Trump. Let's take a watch.

During the war, everybody has problems. Even you, but you have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the future. You don't know that. You don't know that. God bless. You don't know that. You're not having a war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel.

You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards. Right now, you're playing cards. You're playing cards. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III.

It's hard to even watch today. And this is you in the corner right there highlighted in the Oval Office that day. What was going through your mind? Well, we had met with Zulunsky. that morning. And I told him, a couple things I had told him. One is don't make it a controversial or contentious meeting. The second I said, you know, sir, I know you like to use English and speaking English.

Use your interpreter. He goes, why? I said, because it allows you to think before you answer the question. And he said something that was really telling right there that confirmed what I said. He interpreted when President Trump said, you don't have the cards. He thought it was a card game. That's not what he was getting at. So you didn't allow time for you to think your way through what you were going to say.

And Ukrainians told me afterward, he said, God willing, he meant God forbid. He just didn't know the translation quite right. That's where I said, and I've told him that more than once, is use your translators an advantage. You don't, you know, English is not your primarily. It's like your third or fourth language. And to me, that's good advice. He didn't follow virtually any of the advice. And later that week, I went to Council on Foreign Relations,

and I said, well, sometimes you need to be headed in the head like a mule with a two-by-four. And it was almost like he'd get in over skis. And it was painful to watch because everything we had told him to do, he didn't do. Because it seems to me that you wanted him to succeed. You wanted him to sign the minerals deal that he was supposed to that day.

He present himself to the president as how you saw him. I mean, just the week before that Oval Office meeting, you went to Kiev, you saw Zelensky in his office, we see it right here, and after this meeting, you called Zelensky a, quote, embattled and courageous leader. But what reaction did that statement get from the White House? Not a very good one.

And let me explain why, and it's interesting, because I said to people that he is embattled. He's been fighting for a long time, he's courageous, and courageous to define it. The day of the invasion, he said, you'll see our face to the Russians, you'll see our face, not our back, and he went on a ride to get out of town. He said, I don't need a ride any of ammunition.

Is that a man of courageous? Sure is. When you talked about in battle, I said, you know, here's a guy who's a country at war with an existential fight for his freedom. I said, the last time an American president faced that was Abraham Lincoln. And I said, we have to understand where he's had and where he's coming from. He hasn't left town. He's willing to fight.

He's willing to do things. and I had this whole discussion with him. And what you didn't see, they came in with us, his team did. And he ran everybody out of that office when we first met. It was just he and I. And we spent a considerable amount of time in there. I know he was tired. You know, it's one of those you look at his face

and, you know, things like that aid you. When you said that the White House didn't give you a positive response, I mean, who doesn't want to or who didn't want to see him as a courageous leader? Well, I think there were people. in positions of authority that kind of said that, well, you're kind of saying, you're calling them out, saying, you know, this individual, which we were skeptical about.

And I said, no, I'm just being very honest. I would have said it to Sam Smith, same way. Because I think what you have to understand is you reset the stage. You reset the equation, and grudgingly, you get a guy like that involved, and you get them and draw them out, and you talk to him. You know, what you didn't see there was, That was, the press was in the room.

You're talking about it? In the Oval Office. Right. Before that, in the meeting, there was a bilateral, meaning no press. Right. That meeting went really well. And then the press came in, and it all started probably with questions from the vice president. Right.

And there was a reporter in my right, saying, and why didn't he wear a suit? Who cares? You know, it's one of those. That was his national dress. He's wearing it. He came in. Later next time he came in and wore a suit. And I think.

the tension started to rise. And I would have said, don't, you know, don't fall for it. But that skepticism of him seems to have played out in real world life and death consequences. January 26th, right before that, a meeting, sorry, a U.S. official told me the Pentagon had issued in order to stop weapons, being drawn down as it was during the Biden administration, and sent to Ukraine. And then I was told stoppages and slowdowns occurred again, whether from the Department of War or the White House. March, July, later that month. Some of these were stopped within hours or days, including by you and your team.

But overall, what was the impact of all of that skepticism, all of that questioning of Ukraine, Zelensky, and the entire effort? Yeah, I think, and self-serving, meaning we looked at the United States, is, and I have to explain it to people, and I said, look, first of all, you have to understand stockage levels of wars. And, for example, let's just use the Pack 3 missile. Patriot Missiles, the most advanced air defense that we have. So Lockheed Martin is the prime producer of the Patriot Missile, but people don't realize that Seekerheads, the Pack 3 Seekerhead missile, is made by Boeing, and they only make 30 of those in a month.

They shoot those in a day. And it's our own fault, meaning the United States is fault, because years in the 70s, we had what we used to call a 2.5 war strategy. You could fight a war in the Pacific, one in the Atlantic, and also 0.5 left over. We drew that down to 1.0. Because of that, the stockage levels went down, and companies weren't on a wartime footing. So we have to make sure we protect ourselves, and the President did that. When they metered it out, they questioned it what it was a take, we went back to the Unified Commander, the centralized commanders out there.

What do you need to prosecute a war plan? And I think we were saying, we're running out of these. We're running out, for example, let's use the javelin anti-tank missile. People don't realize that assembly line is dead. It's gone. So they had to resurrect the javelin assembly line. So we have to protect ourselves. So you're acknowledging the arguments that everybody heard on all sides for years, right?

We only have so many capacity. So, you know, in terms of missiles, especially air defense anti-tanks, so that we do need to reserve them, whether for the Middle East or Asia and not send them to Ukraine. But the other side of this is how to pressure Russia, like how to get back to that peace table, you know, that I think everybody wants. And you said something interesting in Kiev a few months ago recently. You said, to solve the war, you're probably going to have your raise your level of risk. And the example you brought up was Richard Nixon in 1972 Christmas, bombing North Vietnam in order to try and get a diplomatic deal on the table. So let's talk about pressure moving forward.

For example, should the U.S. send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine? Well, I think you don't really have to send them because they've come up with alternatives to do that. They go the flamingo missile. But their own version. But I think just the president saying, we're thinking about doing it or going to do it, it might change the equation.

But I think the real attack line is economic. And we're doing this, by the way, right now, is attack the Shadow Fleet. The shadow fleet carries the illicit oil. And last week when I was in Europe, I said to him, look, 70% of that comes to the Baltics. You can shut it down if you want to. And so I wouldn't say the military equation will change, but the way that President Putin pays his troops and funds the war is through Petro. And when you look at your rolls, the price of the barrel of oil going down, then attack that.

And we keep talking weaponry. They have a, they, the Russians, have a tremendous ability to suffer. Yeah. And it's sort of like in their culture. You know, these are people who lost millions of people in World War II. And I said, okay, let's attack it differently. And if you'll attack it economically, like with the sanctions, the sanctions are going with, the shadow fleet, you can probably do that.

But can the U.S. go further? I mean, the U.S. has seized Venezuelan tank. right if the US has seized North Korean tankers are you saying the US could seize Russian shadow fleet tankers well yeah well we sanctioned him and by sanctioned them you can it allows you to take them and not us but the Allies as well yeah and I think that you take that shadow fleet you take it off the books to do that you know it's interesting the Secretary of Treasure now we're talking and he said when you look at sanctions layer 1 to 10 one being easy 10 being hard we're probably the

Six in terms of what we have or how we're enforcing? How we're doing it. Now, but he said, but enforcing him were to three. Oh, okay. So his point was, where do you want to go? What do you want to do? And I think the pressure on the economics is good. You know, for example, Putin pays death benefits.

Yeah. $200,000 a soldier. A lot of money. It's enormous. Life-changing for families, right. And you get a booshka, you know, in eastern, east of the Urals. That's the whole lot. So you cut that out.

So that's where economically he's got a problem. I wonder if you could reflect. You know, you spent more than 30 years in the military, including one of your jobs, was as the top special operations commander in Europe at the end of the Cold War. This is not quite that old photo, but an old photo of you.

Almost was, yeah. And I'm told you're fond of saying versions of this statement, I've tried to kill Russians, and they tried to kill me. Now that you're no longer in the administration, I wonder, is there anyone bringing that perspective? I don't know. I mean, you would hope there are.

And I'm not, you know, you think of people like Secretary Rubio and his team are doing that as well. And I'm sure there are advisors out there, but who's the president listening to? But I think you have to have, my comment is, you have to have that person in the room that's willing to tell you no.

That is, I used to have people when I was in military units. I always found somebody. I said, I want your main job is to tell me, once I make a decision, tell me, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And I said, what? And then explain to me why I made a mistake.

But does the president want that? Oh, the president, I will tell you, from knowing him as long as I have, he really is good at that. He's got a Socratic way of doing business. And is there someone doing that for him right now? I don't know. But when I was there,

he had the ability to take that. Now, you better be ready to take the blowback. If you're not ready to take the blowback, then you're in the wrong place. I want to end here by asking you about something you told the Kiev Independent. You said you were leaving the Trump administration because you wanted to spend more time on the outside

where I could be much more open and free to talk about Ukraine than I was inside the government. We've been talking for 20 minutes here. What else would you like to say now? Perhaps you weren't able to say before? I think it's more emphasis than saying it, because I've said it, is that you have to ask yourself a question, is this just a pure business deal or is this when you say war? But is this something you need to be aware of so we don't have another World War III? And I don't want my grandkids going to war.

And I grew up, maybe I'm a product of the 70s and 60s, where you grew up in Warsaw Pact, you'd lived under the Soviet Union. And the level of trust, my level of trust isn't really high with him. And I look at the Ukrainian people from being in there inside, being to Kiev and being in the archive, being in Izmir, whatever, is the, you look at what they're willing to go through. And you look at them, you go, and I looked at their soldiers. I've been to hospitals. I've talked to soldiers out there, and you just, you take your hat off to them for willing to they're able to withstand.

And I think you need to say to President Putin, okay, why don't you just call it a day? Call it a day. and this freeze in place, you go home and do it. But I don't know if we've done that to him or he's been a win. You don't know if the U.S. has made that ultimatum? I mean, I would do it. It's the ultimatum is taking to go home. And then if he doesn't, it's one of those things you could do today.

And there's more and more, especially from last week, is the Europeans are taking more of a lead. And if they don't watch out within, we don't watch out within a year, they're going to go without us. Lieutenant General, Keith Kellogg. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. That's all the time we have now. Thank you at home for joining us. I'm Nick Schiffran.

We'll see you here again next week on Compass Points.