US President Donald Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said on Thursday, the 29th of May, that Russia’s concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion are fair and that the US does not want to see Ukraine in the US-led military alliance, according to Reuters.
Asked by the US broadcaster ABC News about a report that Russia is seeking a written pledge that NATO will not expand eastwards and will not include Ukraine and other former Soviet states in order to reach a peace agreement, Kellogg said: “That is a fair concern.”
“We have said that Ukraine joining NATO is out of the question and we are not the only country saying that … and it takes 32 out of 32 to allow NATO membership,” he said late on Thursday night. “That is one of the issues that Russia will raise.”
“They’re not just talking about Ukraine, they’re talking about Georgia, they’re talking about Moldova,” Kellogg said, adding that the decision on the US view on NATO enlargement will be made by Trump.
Kellogg said the peace talks would include an attempt to merge the two memoranda drawn up by Ukraine and Russia into a single document, with talks starting in Turkey on Monday.
“When we come to Istanbul next week, we will sit down and talk,” Kellogg said, adding that German, French and UK national security advisers will join the US to discuss the memorandum.
Another deception
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly video address on Thursday that Russia was once again deceiving by breaking its promise, made first and foremost to the US president, by not submitting its peace memorandum ahead of a possible meeting in Istanbul.
“Even the so-called memorandum that they promised and seem to have been preparing for more than a week, nobody has seen yet. Ukraine has not received it. Our partners have not received it. Even Turkey, which hosted the first meeting, has not received the new agenda,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Moscow had not received a reply from Kyiv on whether it would attend Monday’s talks in Istanbul.
Zelenskyy said in his address that Russia was “doing everything to make these meetings hollow” and Ukraine’s partners should step up pressure on Moscow.
Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said that without the opportunity to read the Russian memorandum, Kyiv had concluded that “it is probably full of unrealistic ultimatums, and they are afraid to reveal that they are slowing down the peace process”.
Asked to comment on Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha’s suggestion that Russia should immediately hand over the memorandum, Peskov dismissed the idea as “unconstructive”, adding that “either you have to confirm your readiness to continue negotiations or do the opposite”.
Zelenskyy had proposed that Russian President Vladimir Putin meet him at the first Istanbul meeting. Putin did not attend, which prompted Zelenskyy to also not attend and leave the delegation of officials representing Ukraine.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, quoted by the TASS news agency, said that the composition of the delegation to the next meeting would remain unchanged.
In Washington, the White House said that Trump, who has been urging the two sides to reach an agreement, hoped that the proposed meeting in Istanbul would take place and invited both sides to attend.
Kellogg said that Trump is “frustrated” with Russia because he has seen a “level of unreasonableness” from Russian President Vladimir Putin. He slammed Russia for striking Ukrainian cities.
Kellogg pointed out that the total number of dead and wounded on both sides in the Ukrainian war is 1.2 million, which is a conservative estimate.
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the 30th of May, Russia has lost approximately 986 080 soldiers in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion on the 24th of February 2022.
Trump envoy: Russia’s concerns about NATO enlargement are fair; Zelenskyy accuses Russia of “another deception”
