Opinion: Kellogg – Is there really a plan for Ukraine?

I’m still trying to understand Trump’s decision to appoint retired General Keith Kellogg as his special representative to Ukraine.

I don’t know this guy personally so I scoured social media to get a feel for his perspective and to be frank he is everywhere (inconsistent in sight but also literally everywhere in the physical location with lots of activity media) there. Ukraine. He appeared on American television channels in early 2023 after a trip to kyiv and called for increased Western military support for Ukraine. It’s good.

He then wrote this America First position paper on Russia and Ukraine with Fred Fleitz and this appears as an excuse to bash Biden for anything related to Ukraine. I’ve criticized Biden on foreign policy in my own blogs, but I haven’t really found a particularly refined plan for a Ukraine peace plan there.

Essentially, this seems to suggest freezing the front lines where they are, giving Putin commitments on Ukraine’s non-membership in NATO for a long period of time, and threatening Russia with a massive deployment of weapons both to bring Putin to the negotiating table and as a threat if Putin fails to accept peace terms.

The plan simply seems to be: “Well, Trump is such a genius, he can turn water into wine (or Diet Coke), and he’ll just have to make a deal.” » No real comments or reflection on what is needed to make Ukraine sustainable in such peace and to prevent future Russian intervention in Ukraine.

Other topics of interest

“The medicine is more harmful than the disease” – Ukraine at war, November 29 update

After Moscow’s latest strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, Biden sends a message of urgency; More drone attacks on Kyiv; As Russia’s economy collapses, the oligarchs are furious.

I can see Russia gaining a lot from the Kellogg-Fleitz “plan” (if you can call it that, I’m not sure) because it keeps all the territory it secured by force and without it. NATO for Ukraine, nor security guarantees for Ukraine. will remain unable to adequately deter Russia from a future invasion.

This means that Ukraine will not receive investments, will not be economically secure and therefore there is a risk of economic, social and political failure in Ukraine. This has enormous consequences for the future security of Europe.

This risks state failure in Ukraine, leading to further Russian intervention and capture of Ukraine, dozens of Ukrainians moving west and Russia gaining access to Ukraine’s military-industrial complex , now huge and powerful. This is a total disaster for Europe because it suggests that Russia will remain a huge and growing threat to the continent’s security.

I think the best thing about Keith Kellogg is that he’s not Richard Grenell – it’s hard to see the latter being hired as a positive for Ukraine. But this does not constitute a sufficient guarantee for Ukraine, whose survival is essential, and that of the rest of Europe is at stake.

Kellogg, to pay tribute, welcomed the Biden administration’s decision to give the green light to the use of American long-range weapons in Russia, or at least in the Kursk oblast. Kellogg was right to suggest that it was all about giving Ukraine more leverage in possible peace negotiations with Russia. The decision to supply landmines to Ukraine and strengthen sanctions against Russia is also part of the same tactical ploy.

On the sanctions front, we have seen a tightening of secondary sanctions against third-party countries, companies and individuals that help Russia evade sanctions. The sanctions against Gazprombank were long overdue, as was the decision to go after Russia’s parallel oil fleet more aggressively.

The sum total of these actions, along with the approval of the MOEX exchange market over the summer, made it more difficult for Russia to obtain hard currency revenues to finance the war. The ruble responded by weakening. Inflation will rise and the BCR will have to raise interest rates in response, which will dampen growth. This will cause economic hardship for Russians and undermine the country’s social and political stability. This increases the cost of continuing the war for Russia and Putin and will add another decision point to Putin’s calculus about whether to continue the war or seek peace.

All of this is intended to push Putin to the negotiating table – the message should be that the situation will only get worse for Russia if Putin continues the war – more capable Western weapons causing more Russian casualties, additional sanctions causing more economic suffering. And then it endangers the very survival of Putin’s regime – because in the end, that’s all Putin cares about, his own sorry ass.

Putin himself will experience an escalation as the peace talks approach – and I think we are seeing that on the front lines in Donbas and elsewhere. We are also seeing an increase in drone and missile attacks against Ukrainian critical infrastructure. Again, this is intended to weaken Ukraine’s negotiating position in the talks.

But I think we learned something this week in Russia’s use of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) in response to Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles from United States and NATO in Kursk.

Former President Medvedev warned that Russia would respond with weapons of mass destruction. Putin didn’t do it. He got away with it, without even using longer-range ICBMs, which means there are still safeguards against Russian escalation: Putin is still keen not to undermine relations with Russia. China (which does not want an escalation that would disrupt world markets) and with the entering countries. Trump administration. In some ways, the Biden administration is currently exerting increasing dominance over Putin. She should take full advantage of that.

This begs the question, what else could he do?

The most obvious solution is to finally force the release to Ukraine of the CBR’s $330 billion in assets tied up in Western jurisdictions. This would give Ukraine a huge buffer to continue funding its own defense and reconstruction, in the event that U.S. funding under Trump declines.

Knowing that Ukraine has a funding buffer would once again improve its position in peace talks. Today, most of these funds are held in European jurisdictions, but this means that a large portion is held in US dollar instruments, giving the US Treasury the power to force European institutions to comply with any order from the White House requiring their transfer to Ukraine.

The threat of sanctions against the European institutions holding these assets – in dollars or euros – would already be enough to force said European institutions to comply, and quickly. This is necessary if the West truly wants to ensure Ukraine’s survival and security. The Biden team must act now, and Europe must follow the American order.

Taken from the author’s @tashecon blog. View original here.

The opinions expressed in this opinion article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.