President Donald Trump claimed last night that major progress has been made in the settlement process of the Ukraine conflict. “I think we’ve made tremendous progress in the last week. We’re dealing with the Russians, we’re dealing with the Ukrainians. I think there is going to be something,” he reportedly said in an interview with Fox News. He was asked whether he could bring both sides of the conflict to the negotiating table. “I think it’s going to happen,” he responded.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, told AP that the White House is ironing out details of the talks with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy that are expected during the Munich security conference. Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Kellogg are among the Trump administration officials traveling to Germany for the summit, and all could be involved in the talks with Zelenskyy and his team on the sidelines of the event.
AP notes that Kellogg and other administration officials have already been meeting with European diplomats in Washington to discuss Ukraine. But the talks in Munich give Trump’s top aides their first major opportunity to deliver a message about the new administration’s foreign policy outlook, and its approach to a war that Trump has said is costing too much American taxpayer money.
