President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, has reportedly told the White House he intends to step down in January a major shift as the administration pushes a controversial new plan to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
According to senior administration officials, Kellogg recently notified key staff of his upcoming departure. The timing is striking, as the White House is working on a draft peace proposal that has already sparked concern among experts and allies in Kyiv.
The proposed plan shaped largely by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian presidential adviser Kirill Dmitriev would require Ukraine to give up territory and accept limits on its military strength. The framework is widely seen as favorable to Moscow, even though Russia launched the invasion nearly four years ago. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected any arrangement that forces Ukraine to surrender land.
A separate security document tied to the proposal states that any future “significant and deliberate” attack by Russia would be treated as a threat to transatlantic stability. Still, it stops short of requiring the United States or European partners to defend Ukraine militarily, leaving major questions about how much protection the agreement would actually provide.
Reuters first reported Kellogg’s pending exit. Although he originally served as Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia during the transition period, his influence diminished over time as Witkoff and Jared Kushner became central players in talks involving Putin’s advisers.
Kellogg has remained close to Trump for years. He has served in multiple high-level national security positions and was directly involved in several defining moments of the Trump presidency from listening in on Trump’s 2019 call with Zelensky, which triggered the first impeachment, to monitoring Trump’s pressure campaign on Mike Pence just hours before the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
During his testimony to House investigators, Kellogg recalled Trump pushing Pence to block or delay certification of the 2020 election results, telling him something to the effect of, “You’re not tough enough to make the call.”
Kellogg’s departure adds yet another layer of uncertainty to an already delicate moment in U.S.-Ukraine-Russia relations, especially as the Trump administration advances a peace plan critics warn could reshape the geopolitical balance in Russia’s favor.
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