Latest Breaking News

The article's a little misleading - his idea, expressed in a number of interviews before he took office, was that, yes, they would threaten to or actually withhold aid if Ukraine didn't enter talks, but also that they would bump up supplies to Ukraine if Russia was obstructive. Of course, since Trump is the final arbiter of what Russian obstructivism looks like, it's a heavily skewed measure.

Kellogg's certainly a dyed-in-the-wool Republican judging by his social media presence, but the Ukrainians found him a more receptive liaison than others the US has sent, and the Russians demanded he be barred from negotiations as they felt he was too sympathetic to Ukraine.

For perspective, since then they've also demonstrated coolness toward Trump's other liaison officer, Steve Witkoff, making him wait eight hours for an audience with Putin. The main takeaway from this, apart from Russia's unwavering demands, seems to have been propagation of the Putinite lie blasted across social media by a gullible Trump that Ukrainian troops in Kursk are surrounded and face annihilation unless they surrender to Putin's tender mercies. No OSINT aggregators see any encirclement of Ukrainian troops anywhere in Ukraine.