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He says, he believes Putin thought the U.S. would guarantees Russian control of Donbas at the Alaska Summit.
Former U.S. Special Envoy Keith Kellogg believes Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop his invasion even if he captures the entire Donbas region.
Speaking to the Kyiv Independent during a visit to Ukraine, the retired general compared current territorial demands to European appeasement in 1938.
“He doesn’t end there. That’s who Putin is,” Kellogg said, drawing a direct parallel between the Russian leader and Adolf Hitler.
He recalled how Nazi promises over Czechoslovakia quickly dissolved into full-scale conflict. “One year from that day when he came back from Munich, we were in World War II. And that’s my concern, is that we’re going to end up in World War III,” he told the outlet.
High stakes in Alaska
Kellogg, who left his official post in December 2025, remains convinced Moscow could halt the fighting immediately. “Putin could stop the war in five minutes if he wanted,” he said.
In his view, any agreement must look beyond current control of the battlefield. He pointed to high-level talks between Washington and Moscow in Alaska, where he said Russian expectations met unexpected resistance from American negotiators.
“I really believe this, Putin thought he was coming to that summit with the U.S. guaranteeing that Ukraine would give up (Donbas). That didn’t happen,” Kellogg said. He added that the U.S. position clearly remained that “Ukraine is Ukrainian.”
Staggering losses
The former envoy also challenged the idea that Russia is winning on the ground. He cited staggering Russian military losses, estimating casualties between 1.2 million and 1.4 million dead.
To highlight the scale of Moscow’s setbacks, he contrasted current losses with Soviet operations in the 1980s. “The Soviet Union lost 18,000 in Afghanistan and left. Putin has not taken Kyiv, he’s not taken Kharkiv, he’s not taken Odesa, he has not crossed the Dnipro River,” Kellogg noted.
Despite ongoing pressure in eastern Ukraine, Kellogg remains confident in Ukrainian defenses. “As I told President Trump, if Putin wants the rest of Donetsk, then let him fight for it,” he said, concluding that the Kremlin leader is “not succeeding.”
