# Keith Kellogg A retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and longtime adviser to [[Donald Trump]]. In Trump's first term he was chief of staff and executive secretary of the National Security Council, served as acting national security adviser in February 2017 after [[Michael Flynn]] resigned, and from 2018 was national security adviser to Vice President [[Mike Pence]]. ## Special envoy In November 2024 Trump named Kellogg special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. On March 15, 2025 Trump narrowed the role: Kellogg would "deal directly with President Zelenskyy, and Ukrainian leadership." The Russia channel went to [[Steve Witkoff]], who met [[Vladimir Putin]] in St. Petersburg on April 11, 2025. Kellogg also made what CBS News called the highest-profile visit by a U.S. official to Belarus in years, meeting [[Alexander Lukashenko]] in Minsk. State Department officials had opened talks with Minsk in February 2025; after Kellogg's visit on June 21, 2025, Belarus freed opposition figure Siarhei Tsikhanouski and more than a dozen other prisoners. ## The "Berlin" remarks In an interview with The Times of London published April 11, 2025, Kellogg floated British and French troops holding "zones of control" in western Ukraine, west of the Dnipro, as a reassurance force, with Russian forces in the occupied east and a demilitarized zone between them. "You could almost make it look like what happened with Berlin after World War Two, when you had a Russian zone," he said. He then wrote on X that "The Times article misrepresents what I said" and that he "was NOT referring to a partitioning of Ukraine," but to areas of responsibility for an allied force without U.S. troops. ## Departure Reuters reported in November 2025 that Kellogg planned to leave in January, as his temporary appointment approached the 360-day point beyond which it would have needed Senate confirmation. He stepped down on December 31, 2025. In January 2026 he joined the advisory board of the Washington consulting and advisory firm BGR Group. He has said he left so that he could speak more freely about Ukraine, and has denied reports of friction with the administration. ## See Also - [[Steve Witkoff]] · [[28-Point Peace Plan]] · [[Russia Sanctions Relief Ledger]] · [[Ukraine War Timeline]]