Battle Within Trump Camp Over Ukraine Peace Deal as Zelensky Says, "Nyet!"

Special Envoy to Ukraine, Ret Gen Keith Kellogg, may be sidelined as joint news conference in Kyiv abruptly cancelled over Trump's petty pivot.

Trump’s Battle with Zelensky

There is a division within the Trump ranks concerning his sudden turn against Zelensky, blaming him for the war and calling him a dictator, all because Zelensky would not sign an extortion deal over mineral rights, while Russia gives up nothing. It’s entirely possible that the Ukraine Envoy, Ret General Keith Kellogg, has not fully bought into this pivot by Trump as he was negotiating with President Zelensky.

While every other little Trump toady pivoted on a dime with Trump to cast Zelensky as the guilty party, Kellogg did not end up being the sycophant Trump wanted. After all, he was a general in the Army, a 30 year veteran and not accustomed to a grown man with a 13 year old boy inside who throws tantrums over every little thing.

Trump had earlier sent the new Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, over to Ukraine with the delusional expectation that Zelensky would sign away 50 percent of his nation’s mineral rights in perpetuity to the US as some sort of payback for the $185 billion that we have, not sent to Ukraine, but spent to fund the war, much of it paid to arms manufacturers to replenish our own stockpiles while sending our older weapons to Kyiv, as well as humanitarian aid.

Trump falsely claims that we’ve sent $350 Billion to Ukraine in cash and Zelensky has no idea where half of it went. This is an absolute lie. He says that Scott Bessent was treated very badly and that Zelensky was sleeping and did not want to meet with him. All of this is also untrue. Zelensky did meet with Bessent, but the strongarm tactic of Trump’s team demanding that Ukraine give up half of it’s mineral riches to the US for payback, did not work and Zelensky rightly refused to sign the extortion deal.

Trump was furious that Zelensky would not play ball with a deal that is a total capitulation to Putin, where Russia gives absolutely nothing. This is what started the petty name calling and pivot against Zelensky accusing him of being a dictator, unpopular and refusing to have elections.

Even Zelensky’s opponents agree that it is not the time to have elections during the war.

No Press Conference

The joint news conference between Zelensky and Kellogg was abruptly cancelled over the controversy, where Kellogg was ordered to back away despite making some progress in Kyiv. He is not a sycophant, but more if a faithful follower in his role.

While Kellogg talks of Russian concessions, his boss, Trump, seems to have moved on with only Ukraine getting the raw end of the deal and Putin getting everything he ever wanted.

Kellogg, while attending the Munich Security Conference stated that Russia would have to make territorial concessions in any deal. His comments were in stark contrast to SEC DEF Hegseth who stated that Ukraine would never gain back it’s pre 2014 territory and would never be part of NATO.

It appears that Trump overestimated his power over Zelensky and his team was obviously not on the same page, having to walk back comments while in Munich which set up a failed trip to Ukraine by both Bessent and Kellogg.

There are also rumors that Putin wants US frontline troops out of Europe. It’s hard to imagine the US Senate or the military going along with that absolute retreat of the US from Europe for the first time in 85 years.

Trump is desperate to keep his campaign promise, but it appears unlikely as they’ve excluded both Ukraine and our European partners from the Saudi mediated meeting with the Russians.

Trump’s gamble has backfired and that is the reason for his turn away from our ally, President Zelensky. It’s a typical scenario from Trump’s playbook of targeting those who do not play along.