Kremlin told U.S. it didn't want Trump's Ukraine-Russia envoy at peace talks
President Donald Trump’s
special envoy for Ukraine and Russia was excluded from high-level talks
on ending the war after the Kremlin said it didn't want him there, a
U.S. administration official and a Russian official told NBC News.
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg was
conspicuously absent from two recent summits in Saudi Arabia — one with
Russian officials and the other with Ukrainians — even though the talks
come under his remit.
“Together,” Trump said in announcing Kellogg’s nomination in November, “we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”
But Kellogg did not attend U.S.-Russia talks in
Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on Feb. 18. Russian President Vladimir Putin
thought he was too pro-Ukraine, a senior Russian official with direct
knowledge of the Kremlin’s thinking told NBC News. ...
