Envoy Keith Kellogg compares Ukraine intel sharing pause to “hitting a mule with a two-by-four” across nose | Global News Avenue

President Trump told Ukraine and Russia special envoy retired lieutenant general Keith Kellogg that Ukraine and Russia had suspended “self” in U.S. intelligence.

“It’s kind of like hitting a son on the nose,” Kellogg said of the impact of intelligence on the battlefield. “It caught their attention.”

The intelligence shared by the United States is crucial to help Ukraine attack Russian military targets and to expect and stop Russian attacks.

“But it’s a pause. It’s not the purpose,” said Kellogg, chief foreign affairs correspondent at CBS News, Margaret Brennan, Interview with the Foreign Affairs Commission Thursday. “But it’s like, well, we’re trying to get your attention.”

“This is a very important concession for Russia to limit Ukraine’s target and ability to hit Russian forces,” Brennan said, noting that “this pressure seems to have directly affected what they can do on the battlefield.”

“Very frankly, they brought it to themselves,” Kellogg replied to the audience’s hiss.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe Acknowledges intelligence sharing is suspended WednesdayThe move comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House last Friday. The meeting with President Trump should peak in signing a rare earth mineral agreement, but End with condemnationas Zelenskyy tried to remind President and Vice President JD Vance, Russian President Vladimir Putin had broken treaties in the past, while Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance blamed Ukrainian leaders in the Oval Office for not saying “thank you” to US military aid.

Although Kellogg said intelligence sharing could be restored, he refused to say when. “It depends on the president of the United States,” he told Brennan.

Kellogg also said that the Trump administration will be willing to work with Zelenskyy once the mineral agreement is finalized.

“You’re serious about it after signing the document and then signing the document you want to move forward, and I think you can move forward,” Kellogg said. “When I was in Kiev two weeks ago, I knew very well about President Zelenskyy that if we didn’t have an agreement signed, the result.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now likely to be a government official who has reached a deal with Ukraine. Next week, he told reporters on Thursday that on Tuesday or Wednesday, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff hopes to meet with Ukrainian officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Witkoff meets Putin Three and a half hours Kellogg said that in Russia last month, peaceful negotiations were held on “where are the Russians?” to return to the United States.

“We want to do the same thing to the Ukrainians, too,” Kellogg told Brennan.

It is worth noting that Kellogg denied Witkoff’s earlier statement that the Istanbul Protocol drafted shortly after the Ukrainian invasion could serve as the basis for a framework for peaceful transactions between Ukraine and Russia.

The Right-leaning Institute of War Studies describe The Istanbul Agreement is “completely incompatible with the currently stated U.S. policy” and believes that it “cannot be the basis or guide for negotiations, rather than anything other than Russian pre-war demands to suppress.”

The institute noted that the draft agreement would lead Ukraine to surrender its sovereignty and would prevent it from maintaining an armed force sufficient to prevent Russian attacks.

“Steve said it was a starting point. I think it was a good word,” Kellogg said. “I don’t believe that we all are a fair framework. And I think we have to develop something completely new.”

He added: “I think Steve made a comment as a general comment, and it’s not the Trump administration’s policy because they don’t have policies.”

At this point, Kellogg estimates that the Ukrainians should have enough military assistance to continue fighting throughout the summer.

“They have the ability to continue prosecuting the assets of the fight,” Kellogg said.

Kellogg cannot confirm that the United States will support any European peacekeeping force by providing security assurances to Ukraine as part of the peace agreement.

“It’s also part of the discussion we have with Europeans – when you talk about the situation in the back,” Kellogg said.

“In terms of economic terms, what is this, what is sanctions, what is frozen assets, whatever it will be? Then we look at the military terms, too.”

Kellogg also said that in addition to ending the conflict, the president also sought to “reset” U.S. relations with Russia.

“It is necessary to re-establish relations with Russia to ensure the important national interests of the Americans and ultimately prevent us from tangling our entanglements in an endless war of proxy, which is driven by President Trump’s attitude and the framework of this war, unlike the broader traditional approach we openly see war.”

However, he acknowledged that existing sanctions on Russia must be implemented more actively to be more effective.

If you rank our sanctions against Russia in a range of 1 to 7, he said: “The problem is law enforcement, we may be in 3.”

He added: “I think the most important thing is to enforce sanctions – not necessarily sanctions themselves.”

Contributed to this report.