OPINION: Kellogg - Is There Actually a Plan for Ukraine?

I am still trying to get my head around Trump’s decision to appoint retired General Keith Kellogg as his special representative to Ukraine.

I don’t know the guy personally so have been scanning social media to get a sense of his views and to be frank he is all over (inconsistent in view but also literally all over the physical place with lots of media activity) the place on Ukraine. He appeared on US TV channels in early 2023 after a trip to Kyiv and he was then calling for a surge in Western military support for Ukraine. That’s good.

He then wrote this America First position paper on Russia and Ukraine with Fred Fleitz and this just comes across as an excuse to bang Biden for everything to do with Ukraine. I have been critical of Biden on foreign policy in my own blogs herein, but I could not really find any particularly refined plan herein for a peace plan for Ukraine.

Essentially it seems to suggest freezing the front lines where they are, giving Putin commitments on no NATO membership for Ukraine for a long period ahead and threaten Russia with a mass surge of weapons both to get Putin to the negotiating table and as a threat if Putin fails to agree peace terms.

The plan just seems to be “well Trump is such a genius, he can turn water into wine (or Diet Coke), and he will just get a deal done.” Not really much comment or thought as to what is needed to make Ukraine sustainable in such a peace and to prevent future Russian intervention in Ukraine.

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 I can see that Russia wins a lot from the Kellogg - Fleitz “plan” (if you can call it that, I am not sure) as it keeps all the territory it secured by force and with no NATO for Ukraine, or security guarantees Ukraine will remain unable to adequately deter Russia from future invasion.

That means that Ukraine will not get investment, will not be economically secure and hence there is a risk of economic, social and political failure in Ukraine. That has huge ramifications for Europe’s future security.

It risks state failure in Ukraine, so further Russian intervention and capture of Ukraine, tens of Ukrainians moving West and Russia securing access to Ukraine’s now huge and potent military industrial complex. That’s a total disaster for Europe as it suggests Russia will remain a huge and increasing security threat to the continent.

I am left here thinking the best thing about Keith Kellogg is that he is not Richard Grenell - hard to see the latter hire as in any way positive for Ukraine. But that’s not enough of assurance for Ukraine, who’s very survival, and that of the rest of Europe is on the line.

Kellogg, to give him credit, did welcome the Biden administration’s decision to green light the use of long-range U.S. weapons in Russia, or at least in Kursk oblast. Kellogg was right to suggest that this is all about giving Ukraine more leverage in potential peace talks with Russia. The decision to supply Ukraine with land mines and to tighten sanctions around Russia also falls into the same tactical ploy.

On the sanctions front, we have seen a tightening up of secondary sanctions on those countries, corporates and individuals in third countries helping Russia evade sanctions. Sanctioning Gazprombank was long overdue as was the decision to go after Russia’s shadow oil fleet more aggressively.

The sum total of these actions, plus the sanctioning of the MOEX FX exchange over the summer, has been to make it more difficult for Russia to secure hard currency FX receipts to fund the war. The rouble has responded by weakening. Inflation will rise and the CBR will have to raise interest rates in response which will crimp growth. This will cause economic pain to Russians and undermine social and political stability in Russia. It increases the costs to Russia and Putin of continuing the war and will add one more decision point to Putin’s calculus of continuing the war or suing for peace.

All this is meant to push Putin to the negotiating table - the message should be it is only going to get worse for Russia if Putin continues the war - more capable Western weapons causing more Russian casualties, more sanctions causing more economic pain. And then risks to the very survival of the Putin regime - as ultimately that is all Putin cares about, his own sorry backside.

Putin will himself escalate in the run up to peace talks - and I think we are seeing that on the front lines in Donbas, and elsewhere. We are also seeing more drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure. Again, this is meant to weaken Ukraine’s negotiating position in talks.

But I think we did learn 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 US and NATO missiles in Kursk.

Former President Medvedev had warned that Russia would respond with use of WMD. Putin did not. He pulled his punches, not even using a longer-range ICBM, and that means that there are guardrails still on Russian escalation - Putin is still eager not to undermine relations with China (which does not want escalation which disrupts global markets) and the incoming Trump administration. In a way the Biden administration currently has escalation dominance with Putin. It should exploit this to the full.

This begs the question as to what else it could do?

The obvious low hanging fruit is to finally force the release to Ukraine of the $330 billion in immobilised CBR assets in Western jurisdictions. These would give Ukraine a huge buffer to continue to fund its own defence and reconstruction assuming US funding under Trump drops away.

Knowledge that Ukraine has the financing buffer would again improve its negotiating position in peace talks. Now the bulk of these fund are held in European jurisdictions but that said much is held in U.S. dollar instruments giving the US Treasury the power to force European institutions to comply with any White House order forcing their transfer to Ukraine.

The threat of sanction on European institutions holding these assets - in dollar or euro - would already be sufficient to force said European institutions to comply, and quickly. This just needs to get done if the West is serious about ensuring the survival and security of Ukraine. The Biden team should act now, and Europe needs to follow the US order.

Reprinted from the author’s @tashecon blog. See the original here.

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