Moscow, May 31 – U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said Russia’s long-standing opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion is a “fair concern” and reiterated that Washington does not support Ukraine’s entry into the military alliance.
In comments to ABC News, Kellogg said Ukraine’s accession to NATO is “not on the table” and suggested that multiple NATO members also oppose the move. “It takes all 32 NATO countries to agree to any new member,” he said. “I could probably give you four other countries in NATO” that share this position, he added.
Russia has repeatedly cited NATO’s enlargement toward its borders as a threat to its national security, particularly with regard to former Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. Kellogg said these concerns would likely be raised again in forthcoming discussions.
“That’s one of the issues that Russia will bring up,” Kellogg said, adding that decisions on U.S. policy toward NATO enlargement would ultimately rest with Trump.
The retired general also confirmed that peace talks between Russia and Ukraine are set to resume in Istanbul next week, with efforts focused on merging the two sides’ draft proposals into a single negotiating document. National security advisers from Germany, France, and the UK are expected to join the discussions alongside U.S. officials.
Kellogg described Trump as “frustrated” by what he called a pattern of “unreasonableness” from Russian President Vladimir Putin, but also condemned Moscow’s missile strikes on Ukrainian cities.
“This is war on an industrial scale,” Kellogg said, citing an estimated 1.2 million dead and injured combined on both sides of the conflict since the start of the full-scale invasion. He urged Ukraine to participate in the Istanbul talks and warned against unilateral escalations, while acknowledging the scale of destruction inflicted by the war.
